Legacy
by Hawk Strife
Summary: Years after the Teen Titans disbanded, a new Teen Titans has taken residence in Jump City. The Titans Tower is filled with five new teen heros, and one experienced green skinned hero. Garfield Logan leads the new Teen Titans.
1. Why Beast Boy Leads

I think I'm nuts. But I love Teen Titans, and now that the summer has begun again I've gotten crazy enough to try a new story. Hope you guys like it cause I could honestly say it's the first time I've tried to make a well plotted story. Easily, it is my first superhero story, which is tough enough as it is. Well...let's begin shall we?

Jump City, a place well known. A place where the Teen Titans make their home. To be completely correct, the Teen Titans made their home here and now make it again. A new group of Teen Titans, one led by a former team member. Sometime after the end of the Brotherhood of Evil incident, it was decided that perhaps disbanding was an idea that would come up after each of the Titans had reached an age older than teenagers. Nightwing, the team's leader, made the call.

Although it was a harsh decision for each of the Titan's to follow, the reasons for it were understood. Each titan, needed to go and make a name for themselves as a hero. The times were now showing that the best way to defend the earth, and make a living out of it, was to join the Justice League, but it was no small feat. Still, many of the Titans filled out these requirements to join up.

Nightwing: Secret Identity known as Dick Grayson-Once known as Robin, the first to ever fight alongside Batman. He is also known as the foster son, and heir to Bruce Wayne and Wayne Industries. He became a leading figure in the Justice League. He was the first to be accepted and quickly learned the ropes, joining and fighting alongside each of the superheros, and now alongside Batman as an equal. His tenacity and skill made him an able leader, and the friendships he made taught him how to socialize and consider his teammates more than just subordinates.

Starfire: Translated name sourced from Kori'ander- an Alien from another planet, she came to Earth fleeing from a warring race. The Teen Titans aided her in her time of need, and she decided to stay. She has tried to learn many of the Earth's slangs and phrases, however no one's perfect. Became a part of the Justice League shortly after a visit to her home. Tamarean had become a wealthy planet, rebuilt after many long struggles against warring planets and races. Happy that her planet would do well, and after receiving confirmation of her decision, she joined the Justice League as a superhero and as an Ambassador for Tamarean. Her exploits as a superhero are significantly less considering her ambassadorial position, but her changes as a leader still affect the world today, for the better of course.

Cyborg: Secret Identity known as Victor Stone-As a boy, his mother caused an accident that affected his body. His mother died, but his father worked his hardest to save him and turned him into a half human and half machine creation. For years, Cyborg was unable to come to terms with his 'loss' of humanity. But he learned better when he joined the Titans and fought alongside them. He later joined an organization known to the world The Scientific and Technologically Advanced Laboratories (S.T.A.R. Labs). His work benefitted not only him but other people with prosthetic limbs. Although he hoped to never have to change someone who went through the same experience that he did, he is happy to be able to bring back near full capabilities with a prosthetic limb. His superhero exploits are also low, but he whenever his friends ask for his help, he is always willing.

Raven Roth: Fake Identity known as Rachel Roth-She was the son of a Demon known as Trigon, and a human woman. She was born Azarath, a place in another dimension entirely. Her Dark powers were difficult to comprehend and control, forcing her to become emotionless but she overcame that with her time among the Teen Titans. After the separation of the Teen Titans, she became a mystery for some time. She disappeared from the radar of her friends, although Nightwing suggested that perhaps she returned to her home in another dimension. When she returned, she greeted each of her friends in the Justice League after joining with them. She decided that she would not live there, but rather, be on call as she tried to live a normal life in the world below.

Beast Boy: Identity known as Garfield Logan-Son of two scientists in Africa, and a victim of a disease known as Sakutia. Garfield was the first to ever survive the disease, and was in turn affected to become a boy who could transform into other animals. His time with the Doom Patrol was short, but his time with the Teen Titans was truly something that he was proud to remember and learn from. After they separated, however, his invitation to the Justice League was rejected. The reason for this was…well…

"Titans Go!"

A yell cried out from a crowd of shrieking and fleeing people. From the crowd, a green skinned man in a white and purple uniform pointed out with a confident grin on his face, with overly elongated and sharpened canine teeth.

The one he stared back at was a large man with dark skin, and several pieces of weaponry covering his body, almost attacked to his skin. He had two rocket launchers over his back, a targeting and scanning eyepiece over one of his eyes, and several pieces of high-tech automatic rifles in his hands.

He stood over a pile of rubble, one that had come from the hole that was apparent on the side of a building. He gave a toothy grin under his mustache, aiming the two rocket launchers down towards Garfield. Before he got that chance, a shadow jumped through the pile of rubble. Suddenly, the large man felt the rubble go under, and he lost his balance as the rubble pulled him under. On the other side of the pile of the rubble, stood a girl covered in Ninja attire, all black with a scarf covering the lower half of her face, and her hair tied up.

"Shuri' look out!" Someone yelled as her side of the rubble suddenly exploded, sending her and several bricks and dust down the road a few feet. Her eyes were closed shot, preparing for the pain she would feel against the ground, but a soft cushiony feeling was what she received.

She opened her eyes, surprised to see that she was lying down on a light. It felt warm and soft to the touch, almost like a fluffy pillow. Shuri' slid off and landed on her feet easily, looking up to another girl with skin glowing enough to hide her specific features enough to hide her identity. She had large pale golden wings, bright white clothing and shiny golden hair.

Shuri' gave a light nod from her head, "Angel..." she whispered before running towards the remaining pile of rubble. As she stepped on the shadow of the building, she disappeared. Her body sank into the shadow in almost an instant.

Angel flapped her wings and floated over to the pile of rubble as another explosion came from within. Bricks and rubble impacted harmlessly against an invisible spherical shield. She gave a grim face as she placed her hands together, before thrusting them out forward, sending beams of light into the rubble, piercing through.

It was silent for a few moments, the beams pulling back and disappearing into her body. "I thought we weren't allowed to kill?" said a voice from a few feet away. It was a teenage boy, wearing khaki shorts, a solid red t-shirt, and a black bandana over his face with two slits for eyes.

"Didn't someone tell you to get a real costume?" said a voice masked by a voice scrambler. Muffled rockets were heard as a figure covered in technological suit, smoothed over and rounding around the different joints. The helmet fitted the head, adding a bit of size, but gave no facial features. The front was made of a glass material, dark and tinted to the point where no one could see within, the owner could see through. "It's been a month Void Walker..."

The teenager, Void Walker, turned over towards the teenager in red armor, flying slightly above and out of his reach. "Hey Comet! Mind your own business!" He said raising his fist and shaking it fervently. Another explosion sounded at that moment, and Void turned towards it with a look of surprise, before he reached out to his side, eyes glowing slightly, as his hand disappeared into thin air. He pulled it out, bringing out a police tower shield, holding it in front of him. Several pieces of brick impacted strongly against him, denting and cracking against the thick plastic. "I should have gotten one from Brazil..."

From the pile of rubble, the man walked out. He was covered in scratches, as were his weaponry. But there were no dents, and the grin on his face was still there as he aimed one of the rocket launchers down towards Void, and sent out a mini-rocket. Void's eyes widened, but before he could move, a red beam fired down, cutting through the rocket and exploding it quickly.

"That's another one you owe me Voi'."

"It's Voi_d_, with a D!"

"We're not actors, we're superheroes!" Comet shouted through the voice scrambler, before aiming an arm towards the man with the guns, a small slot opening on the top of the arm, pulling out a small rocket and then launching it towards his target. The shot and spiraled towards him while he fired an automatic rifle. A bullet impacted against the rocket, blowing it up mid-air, while several others impacted against Comet. Several bullet-holes and scratches appeared, but they were ignored as he fired another rocket.

The man jumped away, firing several rockets and bullets up at the armored hero. The bullets impacting forced his body to move as the chest opened up to show a glowing glass orb. "Not cool." He said calmly as the orb shined brightly and a powerful beam suddenly shot out, 

destroying the rockets and forcing the bullets to stop at such a speed that it crushed itself. He missed his target, but the beam hit the road, forcing the entirety of what was under the beam to create a crater that went down three meters after two seconds of being under the beam.

"Aha! A very powerful weapon. Truly, you and I are similar no?" Said the man suddenly, the grin still on his face and his eyes twinkling at the sight of the weapon as the chest piece covered it again.

"You don't want to get hit by my Gravity Beam. Now then Cannon, are you ready to give up?"

His grin widened greatly before aiming two arms covered by gauntlets. From it, two hooks suddenly shot out, with wires attached to them. Comet saw the two hooks spin around and attach themselves to one of his arms, and another one to his leg. He looked over himself before he was suddenly pulled down, forcing him to increase the boost on his thrusters, and trying to pull away from Cannon's grip.

Cannon continued to pull down, looking up as a shadow suddenly pulled out of the ground and transform into Shuri's form. "The Shuriken can never go through my armor!" He shouted as he twirled into a tornado kick, impacting into her waist and sending her skidding across the ground.

"You are not the Teen Titans that the world knows! You are weak, untrained! The other Teen Titans of today are more famous than you could ever be!" He gave a grin as he pulled on the wires, sending Comet straight into Angel, and letting the two flail into a building. Cannon then turned his sight towards Void, the same grin that had been there since the beginning was still there.

Void gave a gulp before his eyes glowed and he reached back, pulling out a rocket launcher. He set it over his shoulder and fired, with a yell. The rocket headed towards Cannon, who simply hit it on its side, sending it into the rubble where it exploded harmlessly. "Good try! Now! My turn!" The two rockets over his shoulders aimed down, towards the blonde hero.

Two rockets were launched, and then two gunshots were heard. The rockets exploded suddenly, sending Cannon sliding back from the explosions. Cannon grit his teeth as he turned towards the source of the gun shots. On top of a toppled car stood a young man with tan skin and black hair. In his hand was a single pistol, still smoking from being recently fired twice. He wore a trench coat and an emotionless expression upon his lips.

His eyes, however, were determined and his gun was still aimed towards Cannon. "Again with you! My favorite fantasy titan. Have you ever thought about how little people really care about you? You haven't even met the real Teen Titans."

"Cannon..." The boy said with a whisper, reaching into his trench coat with his free hand.

"Yes boy? Or should I call you Duel as you wish?" Cannon grinned greatly as he pulled out his many weapons. Two mini-rocket launchers on each leg, the two on his shoulders, and a large Gatling gun that he put together from the automatic rifles. He held it, and aimed it towards Duel.

"We already have a real Titan on our team." He said as he pulled out another pistol, aiming it down towards Cannon. A slight twitch appeared at the corner of his mouth as he looked behind Cannon briefly. "Good night."

Before Cannon had a chance to pull the trigger, he felt a sudden and giant impact send him into the wall of one of the buildings. It was a tail, a giant green tail, significantly larger than Cannon. As he dropped away from the crater on the side of the building, he got a good look as a green T-Rex transformed down to the size of a young man, with green skin and tooth jutting out from his lower lip and pressed against his upper one. He then blacked out.

After that, the cops arrived and quickly cuffed the armed man, taking off each of his weaponry, with some difficulty. During that, Garfield stood in front of each of the other superheroes, looking over each of them and their wounds. "Ok, so it's not one of our better days..."

Duel raised an eyebrow slightly as he waited on Comet to fix his boot. He was leaning on Duel's shoulder in order to keep balance as he repaired it. Comet easily had the most damage on him, with bullet holes and scratch marks. However, nothing seemed to show that he had taken actual damage to his body. Angel was rubbing her face slightly, probably from when Comet had been slammed into her, and Shuriken was trying to ignore the painful bruise that would appear on her waist soon. Void was looking over the hand he had used to hold the riot shield, it hurt a little bit.

"All right, here is what the main problem was." Garfield started, before being interrupted by Duel's voice.

"Can we do this back at the tower? My shoulders starting to get numb."

Comet looked over at Duel from where he was standing, "What does that mean?"

"It means your heavy."

Garfield shook his head as he looked over the rest of them. "Anyhow! Teamwork is what you're missing. You were all able to work around each other, but you never worked together! Angel was the only one who honestly had someone's back during the entire battle."

Angel pressed her fingers together in embarrassment at being praised, if only a little bit. Garfield then turned towards Void, looking over at the police shield on the ground. "Where did you get that by the way?"

Void turned towards the shield, his hand still stinging slightly before his eyes widened. He quickly ran over to it and had it disappear along with his arm, before pulling it back. "Ha, problem solved."

"Wanna bet? Remember that rocket launcher...?" Shuriken said, bringing Void over as he rolled his eyes.

The Titans Tower became a kind of home for the five teenage superheroes, all of them trying to learn how to be true heroes. And their leader, and teacher, was none other than Beast Boy, preferably called Garfield Logan.

There was no declaration, or press conference. It was merely Garfield calling in a favor, after he found a team. It was likely that after a month of action and crime fighting, that news of them had spread.

Still, he had not received a message from his teammates. But, whether that was good news or bad was unknown to him. He definitely did this over the heads of the rest of the group, but these five teenagers were never sidekicks either.

He sat down at the table where they usually had breakfast, and it was lunchtime. The team had been forced to move out before they could eat, and Garfield decided to remedy the situation after the battle had been finished. He had already finished his vegan breakfast, and merely read the paper, looking over each new Titan.

Shuriken's scarf was pulled down, as she ate a breakfast consisting of fried rice with eggs and other goodies. Her skills with chopsticks proved she never thought about it, much like an American would be used to a fork and knife. A ninja well-trained and imbued with a power that supported her training exponentially. Capable of traveling and hiding in the shadow itself, and armed well in hand-to-hand as well as a few throwing knives, and explosives.

Garfield's eyes moved over to Void as he bit into an egg sandwich, a gleeful smile on his face. Sandwiches were the only thing he ate, Garfield did not really understand why but at the same time, he was a vegetarian, so he was the same in a way. Void's mask had been taken off, although his mask never actually hid anything too well.

Comet stood still with arms crossed in front of the table. He never ate, and Garfield never asked why. He guessed that perhaps he was not human at all, but Comet did things from time to time that seemed to change his idea. Every now and then, he would see him place a cartridge of some sort into the arm.

Duel was next calmly eating through his cereal. He enjoyed cold food over warm, although he would not mind a little variety. He never wore a mask of any kind, although he never gave anyone his real name either. He noticed that he and Comet would get into scuffles from time to time, while he and Void usually got along quite well. Garfield guessed it would have to do with the level of trust between identities of each other. He shook his head, he was probably thinking too hard.

Angel was the only Titan that was not there. There was a room and a seat that was ready for her, but she never actually stayed. Garfield guessed that she probably had a family along with her secret identity, a rare hero indeed. He never complained however, and never asked her for any 

details. Her life was her own, but he did suggest that she try and stay over for the weekends, she still had not given him an answer though.

Garfield sat back. He had forgotten how little he knew about the Teen Titans when he first joined. He took it for granted, how he could learn to trust each of his teammates, to the point where they knew each other by their real names. Now, he had to start again. And this time, he was the leader.

"Lead?"

He looked up from the paper, noticing that everyone was finished with their food, if they had any. They were all looking over at him; Duel had been the one to speak to him. He was the only one who called him Lead, as if this were a squadron. "You don't actually need me to excuse you for you to leave the table."

Duel rolled his eyes slightly, while everyone else stood up taking their plates and utensils, dropping them into the sink. Duel remained, while Garfield looked over at him, returning the look of 'why am I still waiting.' "Go now please." Garfield said, receiving a response from Duel as he stood up and placed his plate in the sink.

He stayed on his newspaper, before folding it and tossing it down the chute for trash. He looked on as the team went about their daily lives. Training, relaxing, or reading. Garfield gave his arms a stretch as he walked over to the training room. Duel had of course beaten him to it, and was already going through a workout with his twin bokugen, Japanese wooden swords. He followed through with strikes, feints and bounced the stick off of the punching bag skillfully. His imaginary enemy, forced him to duck and roll under, bringing both of his swords up in a powerful slash that pushed the bag up, before it fell and began to swing ungracefully.

Garfield gave a toothy grin before he transformed into a wolf suddenly, eyeing the boy as he continued to train diligently. He stepped onto the mat silently, stalking on padded feet before narrowing his eyes. He jumped forward, teeth bared for a strike.

His teeth chomped onto something hard, but not indestructible, one of the wooden swords. Duel kept his sword up with a serious expression on his face, forcing Garfield to stand on his two legs. He transformed into a tiger suddenly, suddenly gaining size and weight and forcing Duel to roll away with wide eyes.

He swung a paw with his claws out, and Duel jumped out of the way. He said nothing, twirling his two swords around, his left hand keeping on in front of him in defense, with the other behind him, ready to lunge out in a strike.

Garfield made the first move, running low and jumping forward with a powerful strike. Duel jumped back again, twirling both his weapons before he brought them down quickly onto Garfield's shoulder blades. He felt pain that much was obvious. But the debilitating strike that Duel meant for did not work out as he planned. Duel came to this realization as he slid across the mat with his air knocked out, courtesy of a ram suddenly head-butting into his gut.

Garfield transformed into his human form, giving a few nods as he walked over to him. "Getting better already Duel, and it's only been a month. You're learning."

Duel gave no response as he continued to try and breathe in, after a moment he felt air go into his lungs, and he coughed out immediately after. He looked up at Garfield, a smirk on his face, "It's...not all I've learned..." His eyes looked past Garfield's leg.

The green hero turned around in time to see a red armored fist attached to Comet, come at him at full speed. He dodged, barely, bringing his arm over and grabbing on tightly, before pulling Comet over his shoulder and landing him unceremoniously over Duel's back. He laughed after he was sure the two were done for the moment, "Work on your technique, we'll see what the future may hold."

With that, he left, leaving the two heroes to groan and push away from each other as they tried to get back up. The common room had Void Walker reading a book, flipping through page silently. His eyes read through the words lazily, but Garfield had no doubt that he was reading; it reminded him of Raven.

Shuriken, meanwhile, was sitting down in front of a turned off television. Nothing to do and nothing that would come to mind. He took a seat in front of her, pulling out an old Gamestation and grinning as he popped it open, looking through the racing game he played with Cyborg many times before.

"How many video games have you played Shuri'?" He said as he turned on the Television and the Gamestation.

"None Sir Logan, my sensei...probably did not believe in such games..."

"Gar's fine Shuri', I'd like to have some of you keeping this to be a team and not a military squadron."

"Duel merely wishes...to keep things efficient."

"An efficient team is a close one, and I learned that when I was your age..." Garfield picked up a controller, tossing a controller back to Shuri' who caught it without even blinking. "Now, I'm sure you'll get used to it as we play, it's not that hard anyways!"

He grinned as he picked his character, and watched Shuri' pick a character and racer for herself. As the race began, he did not notice how focused Void was in his book. Nor did he pay attention to the fact that Duel and Comet had gotten up and were now training against each other, loudly and with damage that would probably need replacing on some levels.

He focused on how lucky he was. There was a new team, it was what he wanted. It had been his goal, after the first team disbanded. Garfield could not simply join the Justice League and leave the Tower empty and alone...

He wanted the city to stay protected. But more importantly, he wanted the next generation to be ready...

So, I've got a problem. I need some help in order to make enemies. Villains are tough to make up, and powers are just as tough. I would like some help in thinking up powers, while characters I can make up myself. Ideas are good, but no offense to the fact that I'm the one writing the story. So yeah, please help?

Besides that, a nice review helps. I take some criticism, considering my first one. Please don't flame, it's kind of immature. Good night and thanks for reading.

Hawk Strife


	2. Before the First Day

So I've this sort of second chapter, working as an introduction. Don't be confused, I did it on purpose. Please, enjoy this...small little token of appreciation for the reviews. Speaking of which-

wicca in training: Thanks for the first review

wawaboy2: Thank you for the insight

I hope you two and more read and review and enjoy this chapter.

Thank you

--

Before the New Teen Titans came together, Garfield was alone. He was the last Titan to remain in Jump City. While the rest of the team went on with a new life.

Titan's Tower was closed after the team disbanded, at the request of Nightwing. Garfield decided to rent an apartment and did his crime fighting from there.

On this day, however, the time for much change would come up.

The day was bright and shining. There were clear skies and no sign of trouble. Above Jump City, a green raven flapped its wings, moving between tall buildings.

He landed down at the street, a raven transforming him back into his human form as he took a look around and headed down the street with a comfortable smile on his face. He was stopped by a staring set of eyes a foot or two below his eyesight. They were filled with awe and wonder, "It's…Beast Boy! Of the Teen Titans."

He rolled his eyes and shook his head as he smiled slightly, "I haven't been a teenager for eight years kid." As he said this he walked over to the boy and crouched down to his eye level, his smile turning into a grin. "And you can call me Garfield."

The boy's smile brightened as he nodded. He gave a mumbled thanks as his mother called for him, making him bolt straight towards her. He started to give a quickly paced story of his newest friend to his mother as he walked hand-in-hand. For a moment, Garfield was reminded of a moment similar with him and his own mother.

He stood up, fingers wiping down his eyes as he turned back down the road and continued to walk down. It was noon, and there'd already been an attempted robbery in the morning. Since then, however, he'd been doing nothing but patrolling, and he had missed breakfast. As he walked by a dark looking café, his right eyebrow raised interested as he paused.

The next moment, he lightly pushed open the door. A bell above him gave a jingle as he stepped in towards the counter. The attendant, a pale girl with long and spiked hair and several piercings along her face looked back at him boringly. Green skin was obviously nothing special to her. Either that, or she watched the news often enough.

He ordered himself a bagel and tea to tide him over before he went home to cook himself a real tofu breakfast. He relaxed himself in the dark room. The incense and the smell of dust in the air calmed him down, although for a moment he did not know why. His mind began to focus on a girl with black hair, a red chakra on her forehead, and a smile that was difficult to see with the naked eye. At that moment, he remembered why, and took another sip of the tea. His memories gave him a calming effect as he continued to eat, and looked up at the sky. His friends were missed, and eight years was a long time to do small jobs to save the city. With no team, he would usually be kept out of the loop when it came to bigger supervillains. But he understood why.

There was already a new group of Teen Titans. He was in the West coast, while the new Teen Titans were in the East. Led by a new Robin, the third if Garfield wasn't mistaken. He'd heard that there was a large group of people working there, including Superboy and a new wondergirl but he had not had the chance to meet them yet. He knew that Cyborg was spearheading the project, and helping the new Titans from time to time.

Garfield closed his eyes, he'd felt left out when they made the team. He received no invitation for that, although the Justice League letters would keep coming, Nightwing gave him that promise for some reason.

As he finished the bagel and tea, he gave a sigh as he left the plate and empty cup there. He left some change as a tip, being a superhero or an actor did not pay very well. He shook his head as he moved out of the café; he would probably have to pull more money out of the trust fund that his parents had given him. He sighed; he had no income whatsoever, which was a little depressing for him. The mayor offered him a payroll constantly, saying that working to save the city was no small feat, but he knew that the tax money would be better spent on the rebuilding process that happened after every major supervillain.

He transformed into a raven, taking off and flying up just over the roofs of the buildings. As he landed on one of the corners of the building, looking over the streets he admitted to himself that he could be happier. But he wasn't ready to leave Jump City on its own yet, there were too many memories and places that he owed a bit more before he left.

An explosion sounded in the distance, and several sirens sounded. He looked over in raven form, and rolled his eyes before flapping his wings and gliding between buildings towards the source. Transforming into an eagle, he soared higher. The smoke pillared over a small fire that was appearing in the street, sourcing from a destroyed car. He folded his wings in as he dived down to the ground.

He looked for the source of the explosion, the enemy that had caused this. There was already a casualty, a teenager with an apparently broken leg. He'd need to make sure there'd be payback.

He found his target, a large man with a rocket launcher over each shoulder. He flew over the man's head, flapping his wings against the bald forehead. He felt one of the launchers ram into him, and send him over to the ground. Still, Garfield had been through much worse before.

He transformed as he landed, turning into his human form. The man grinned, "The beast! How happy I am to face against you!" He said with a strong accent. He was large and burly, a mustache on his face as he grinned. Tanned and muscular, his entire body was covered in bullets, guns, and grenades. "You may call me Cannon!"

Garfield gave him a strange look, looking over at the destroyed car, he was happy to see it was empty. He then stood up, "Well…Cannon, how about you give up now…? You've done enough damage don't you think?"

"Enough?" Cannon looked over his two rocket launchers and quickly shook his head. "Absolutely not! I have just received these, and now I must use them to the fullest extent." He looked over his rocket launchers and pressed his lips up against one of them, to Garfield's disgust.

All of a sudden, one of the rocket launchers was aimed towards him. Garfield yelled as a rocket suddenly launched out, and Garfield barely rolled away in time, just as the rocket slid across the ground and exploded on the sidewalk.

Garfield felt the explosion push him along the road before he landed and rolled along. He grit his teeth as he pushed himself to his feet, Cannon laughing deeply. "Yes! Good green one, I was hoping you would help me test my new toys! Please, make it interesting before dying!" He aimed both rocket launchers down towards Garfield, pulling the trigger on both and sending them towards him.

Garfield narrowed his eyes as he ran forward, ducking between the two missiles and ignoring the explosion behind him as he thrust his palm harshly against Cannon's face. He pulled back to see that him reworking his jaw, but relatively unharmed. Garfield, on the other hand, had a pained palm as he rubbed it furiously. "Geez, what's your face made of!? Armor plating?"

"Oh yes! How did you tell? I was shot once, but they made my head much stronger thanks to it!" He smiled as he said this, bringing his launcher around and hitting Garfield with it again. He slid across the ground before stopping at the edge of the sidewalk. He groaned in pain as he tried to pull himself up onto his feet, he grit his teeth.

"Guess I'll have to do this…with a little less holding back…" He narrowed his eyes, transforming them first. But before he could do anything else, a shot rang out.

Cannon looked over at one of the rocket launchers, pulling the trigger slightly. Nothing fired, in fact, nothing happened. Cannon looked distraught as he looked over the rocket launcher. Garfield looked around, searching for a source of the shot. He found it, a boy holding an automatic pistol in one hand.

The boy did not seem older than 16, but when Cannon saw him and turned the other rocket launcher towards him, the boy didn't hesitate to fire another shot. The rocket launcher exploded on the impact of the bullet, probably from hitting a rocket. Cannon was sent flying to a wall, while the boy spun the gun around and holstered it.

Garfield stood up and got a good look at him. He had spiky black hair, and tan skin. His eyes were gray and his expression seemed much more serious than a guy his age would normally have. He was short, about 5'8, and was wearing a large black trench coat, and a pair of jeans. The holster, from what Garfield could gather, was around his waist much like that of a police detective. But the coat was baggy, he could have had other weapons that Garfield could not see.

"Nice aim…" Garfield said.

"Nice palm thrust…" the boy replied. There didn't seem to be any actual sarcasm in there, and Garfield was glad for that. By all accounts, the palm thrust should have broken a regular mans jaw. He sighed and looked over at where Cannon's body was, but noticed that it was no longer there.

His senses picked up, and he turned around to see Cannon aiming an automatic rifle straight at him. Garfield tensed, but he listened as something whipped through the air and collided with the bottom part of the gun, sending it upwards as it fired. It was a wooden katana, a bokugen. The boy held it in his left arm expertly, before pulling out another with his right hand and bringing it down over Cannon's arms.

A sickening crunch was heard as the bokugen quickly flashed back and was being placed between the belt and the waistband of the jeans. Cannon cried out in pain as he laid on the ground, arms dangling slightly. Garfield had to wince, it was a painful sight. He then looked back at the boy, who looked back at him before turning around and walking away.

"Uh! Hey wait! What's your name?" Garfield called out, but the boy continued to walk away.

"Call me Duel," He said in a breath, without any hesitation in his step.

"Hey, how about joining-"

"No thanks, I don't do teams very well." The boy, only known as Duel, interrupted before disappearing inside a crowd of people who had been looking over the battle. Garfield could only sigh.

Cannon had been silent strangely, sobbing lightly, probably from the defeat instead of the pain. Garfield shook his head; at least there were no deaths. But that just meant that Cannon had a chance of getting out that much faster. Garfield took out his cell phone, noting Cannon as a possible villain to reappear in the future.

He then looked over at where Duel had just been, before writing out his name. He smiled as he did this; it had been the first meeting of a young teen hero. Someone capable of crime fighting at a young age, and this person seemed to act like an expert. The broken arms were a bit extreme, but it had made things much easier.

As the ambulances came and took care of Cannon, as well as the casualty of the first explosion, Garfield decided that he was done for now. He took off as a raven again, this time heading for his apartment, he had had enough patrolling for one day, at least.

He reached his apartment, hopping through the window and transforming back into his human form. Pictures of the many friends he'd held while he was a Teen Titan were all around him. After rummaging through the fridge, he began to cook himself a decent lunch/dinner, before he would take a nap.

A phone call came through to him as he finished cooking, and began to eat through his hard worked meal. "This is Garfield…" He responded tiredly, beginning to chew through a piece of toast.

"Ah Mr. Logan! This is Mayor Weston of Jump City; I'm just calling to give you our thanks once again for a wonderful job protecting our city."

Garfield rolled his eyes as he responded, "There's no need for that Mayor, I was just doing my job…"

"Of course, now…I was wondering if you could do me a small favor today?"

Garfield smiled as he finished his toast and focused on the phone completely, "What can I do for you Mayor?"

"Well, there's the small matter that there seems to be a case of villains that have been sprung onto the street. Unfortunately…Cinderblock is outside city hall……hello? Hello? Mr. Logan?"

Garfield was running out as fast as his legs could take him. He was out the window, and into bird form, flapping his wings in the general direction of city hall. As he reached city hall, Cinderblock was obviously the biggest worry that he had to face.

The large moving creature that was made out of, seemingly, cement pounded into the front door of city hall with policemen shooting at him from all around him. Garfield sprung into action, turning into a T-Rex and using his tail to take out Cinderblocks legs. He then chomped down on his legs and threw him away from city hall.

Cinderblock hit the ground, but began to push himself onto his feet moments later. Garfield was ready and used his tail to hammer Cinderblock into the road. It was then that Cinderblock grabbed onto Garfield's tail, and flung him into the air. Thinking quick, and transforming back into human form, he landed on his feet, barely.

Cinderblock was already up and charging towards Garfield. The charge ended when a hole suddenly appeared below Cinderblock's legs. A large smash could be heard, and dust kicked up over the road. The police, and Garfield, brought their hands up to protect their eyes as the dust passed over them. As it settled, Garfield saw what had happened. Cinderblock had fallen into a large trap, a hole made under the crust of the road. Cinderblock tripping in it, collided his face with the rest of the road, and knocked himself out.

Garfield looked around for the person responsible for this, but saw no one who seemed like they were not surprised by how quickly the battle had ended. He picked up a sound with his ears, and pulled his foot back to see a shiny metal object suddenly impale itself into the road, inches away from where his foot had been. A shuriken, sharp and polished, caused him to look up at the source. He found someone covered in black, including their face. Garfield couldn't really force himself to say it, but he knew he was looking at a ninja as they suddenly popped smoke and disappeared as the wind blew.

Garfield blinked looking away for a moment before looking back up at where the smoke was still dissipating. "Are…you kidding?" He whispered to himself.

"Mr. Logan!" Garfield turned his head to the source of the voice, seeing it to be one of the police officers. "Sir, there's a report saying that Pynto Catholic School for girls is under attack by…ah…"

Garfield rolled his eyes, "I'm used to it, just tell me…"

"An…angel?"

Garfield paused for a moment, thinking it over in his mind. "So…a Catholic school…is under attack by an Angel…"

He looked over at the police officer, who seemed to be kicking some dust from the road. The officer shrugged back at him as he answered, "Maybe it's a protestant?"

--

Meanwhile, the "Angel" that was terrorizing the school truly threw ideals and beliefs for a loop as pieces of the school were destroyed by her wings growing suddenly and giving a simple and quick flap. Girls either froze in terror or continued to run, unable to do anything against the villain.

Garfield reached the 'battlefield' as the terror continued to spread and girls of all ages ran away from the obvious source. Without a second thought, he remembered her from a few files he'd read in the past, a former student of H.I.V.E. But before he could spring into action, the "angel" was suddenly hit by a flying piece of concrete.

Garfield rolled his eyes, "This is getting too convenient…" he said to himself as he entered the grounds looking the source. The sight was, however, not expected. "Another!?"

Another girl with large white wings flew…no, wiped his eyes with his fingers gently. But he wasn't imagining things. While the 'angel' that was destroying things flapped her wings, the one that had just appeared merely…floated.

Before Garfield could think on it anymore, the floating one raised her arms and began to shine brightly. Her hair began to wave wildly; as she suddenly aimed her arms towards the other 'angel,' sending several already separated chunks of concrete in her direction.

Most of the concrete missed, to Garfield's disappointment, but one hit directly into the gut. Falling to the ground and gasping for air, the 'angel' tried to breath and push herself up. She could only push herself up by her arms before Garfield placed a foot over her back and pushed her down to the ground.

"No no, you lose, give up please." He said as he wagged his finger with a smirk on his face. He did not see the look of surprise on the other girls face, but he could easily tell that the girl under his boot was obviously glaring up at him.

His smile must have portrayed arrogance, because the next move was made by the girl under his foot. She enlarged her wings and tried to trip Garfield, but he stepped over it and pushed it down with his foot. "I could make this easier for me by turning into a much bigger animal. But you know, you might actually break something…"

She stayed silent, her wings growing smaller again. She slowly placed her head on the concrete of the ground. Garfield sighed in relief, one of the most silent enemies he had ever had the pleasure of encountering. He then looked up at the girl who continued to float there. He got a better look, noticing that she had shining blonde hair and skin that seemed to be made out of a dim light. She wore a shining white blouse and pair of pants. She wore sandals, and her eyes were completely golden. Her wings, finally, were not the regular pure white wings that people remember from stories, but one of a golden yellow hue. They were large and majestic, and flapped only once before she landed softly against the ground in front of the green hero.

"You're…Beast Boy right?"

"That used to be me yeah, it's Garfield now though."

"Oh, pardon me. My name is F…uh…Angel." She said a light smile on her glowing face.

Garfield nodded before looking down at the girl under his boot. Minutes later, policemen arrived and quickly arrested the villain with cuffs for her hands and her wings. After the job was done, he looked towards the school to find that Angel had left silently. She had disappeared, and Garfield could only face-palm himself.

"Mr. Logan…" He heard someone call pathetically towards him. He turned around, his non-too-pleased emotion evident on his face. There stood a policeman with wide eyes, and a frightened look upon his face. "T-there...seems to be…something bigger over at-"

Before he could finish, Garfield had already taken off as a Raven, reaching a high altitude, before transforming into a Condor and reaching an even higher altitude. His eyes darted around the city, looking for signs of a current and ongoing mayhem.

An explosion rocked against the side of a building, as a car suddenly shifted, transforming tires and engines into a body parts, perfectly fitting into that of a much larger than normal human male. It kicked a parked car over to a corner, watching it explode as it grinned and its eyes flashed.

The grin disappeared as a rocket suddenly impacted and exploded against the head of the machine. Garfield transformed into a hawk and began to dive down towards the ground. His 

feathers ruffled against the wind. His beak, and sleek head, pierced through the air as he moved closer to the ground.

With a few flaps of his wings, he slowed down as he neared the ground. He transformed again, landing on his two feet as he looked over the large machine-car...thing. "You got a name big blue?" He shouted as a fist suddenly landed on the spot he had been standing at moments before.

"Ok, maybe Optimus Prime then?" The machine seemed to roar in anger as another fist landed near him again. "Well that's not nice at all!" He said as he stood up, with no scratch on him.

He heard something click, turning his head over to see someone in a red armored suit. The arm was aimed towards the machine, a slot open and a rocket sticking out before it launched suddenly. Garfield watched it, until it collided into the machines face. He blinked his eyes, shielding it from the sudden light, "Maybe Transformer is a better name? Let me know when I get close!"

Another rocket was launched, from a different direction. After the explosion, Garfield looked around the corner seeing a boy with blonde hair and casual clothing whooping in joy and excitement. Two used rocket launchers on the ground, one on his shoulder.

Garfield had to rub his eyes to make sure he saw the boy suddenly pull another rocket, seemingly out of thin air, before firing it. The boy lost his grip as he pulled the trigger, and watched as the rocket moved forward, and the launcher flew backwards. The rocket's side hit the road and slid along it, bouncing off of cars and pieces, giving Garfield the shock of his life as it began to head towards him.

He transformed into a bird, flapping his wings and getting over the rocket and heading away as it exploded against the side of the building. Garfield felt himself land on the ground and slide for a little bit before standing on his own. He blinked his eyes, noticing that the person in front of him was the kid who had launched the rocket.

"Geez, kid! Are rockets the only thing you can use?"

The boy looked up at the green skinned hero, shrugging shortly. Garfield sighed and placed his hand over his eyes, "And what kind of hero doesn't have a costume?"

"...Dude, spandex?"

Garfield blinked his eyes, looking over his own black and purple uniform, and then looked back at the boy's khaki shorts and red t-shirt. "At least a mask?" He asked as an explosion sounded behind him. Garfield turned, forgetting that there was a villain to take care of. "Later then! Don't 

shoot the wrong guy!" Garfield shouted as he turned around and transformed into his gorilla form.

He charged forward, leaping forward as a beam from the red armored hero skimmed off of the shoulder of the villain. Garfield collided into the machine, raising itself onto its shoulder and transforming into a T-rex, much larger than the gorilla, and heavier.

It brought the machine down to the ground under his weight in a matter of a few seconds. After which, Garfield transformed back into his human form, sitting down on the unconscious machine, and looking over at the two people who had been fighting against it. He waved them over, and they came. One walking, and then suddenly appearing in front of him in the blink of an eye and the other using thrusters to hover over, slightly unstable, and then land in front of him.

"I really hope you have names." Garfield said, happy that he could keep these two in his sights for a few moments.

"C..." the red armored guy's vocal responder went into static. He looked over himself before forcefully pummeling his fist against his chest, with a loud clang. The static disappeared, "Comet."

"I'm Void Walker," said the boy with no costume. He gave a grin as he pointed at himself, blonde hair and blue eyes standing out. His hair was short, and it looked like his sneakers were well used. Garfield guessed that he was at least able to hold his own with weapons, but not hand to hand at the look of his form.

"All right, before you go anywhere-" He began when the machine under him rumbled and suddenly stood up, sending Garfield straight into the air. "You've got to be kidding me!" He yelled, flying off as a crane and landing on the roof of a building.

He looked over the corner of the building, and prepared to jump out, before he noticed an explosion come from the side of "Transformer" as Garfield had decided to dub it. The explosion came from another rocket launched from Void. He cringed as Comet slid across the ground, pushed away from the explosion. He barely heard Void's apology as he ran away.

Transformer looked down to see something move quickly along the road, moving low. Garfield could barely tell that it was the Ninja from before. She stepped on a shadow and disappeared suddenly. Garfield watched as bullets began to bounce off of the metal hide of the villain, courtesy of Duel's pistols. He holstered them quickly and pulled out the two wooden katanas, charging forward.

Before he had a chance to strike, the ground gave way for Transformer and Duel, sending them both a few meters down. Garfield face-palmed himself as he watched Duel yell out and fall. The Ninja appeared out of the shadow of a building, standing and looking almost proud.

Garfield's attention was suddenly brought up to Angel, floating a few feet away from him while she bit her fingernails. She pointed out, before pulling her fingers back in and keeping silent. She then decided to do something, pointing out and giving a small yell as beams of light suddenly came out of her, heading in all sorts of random directions.

Garfield's eyes widened as he lifted his leg, watching as a beam suddenly hit the ground where he had been standing moments before. "Whoa! Watch it!" He yelled, looking over the scorch mark on the concrete.

Angel gave a small wave at him, "sorry..." She whispered as she looked down. They both noticed as Transformer suddenly reached out and wrapped its hands around the ninja before she could react. It then pulled its hand back and threw the ninja into the air.

Angel began to stutter and frantically wave her hands around while she moved around in the sky. She held her hands out and waited as ninja approached her at a high speed. Her smile was strained enough that even Garfield could see it. He listened to her as she strained out through her teeth, "Bad idea..."

She lost the air in her lungs, catching the ninja in her arms, as they both fell towards the ground. Garfield looked down, watching as the two landed and then watched Comet's hand transform into a cannon of some sort. He pulled back knob, cocking it, and then firing out something the size of a tennis ball.

It bounced into the crater, where a few seconds later Duel was crawling and sprinting out from. The crater exploded, sending Duel against the road with his hands over his head.

Garfield couldn't take it anymore as he jumped down, transforming into a tiger. 'Decisions, decisions...ah' He thought to himself as he charged forward, and jumped into the crater. He targeted the large ankles of Transformer, and cut through them with claws and teeth. Surprisingly, he found that the grenade had weakened the armor enough for it to take only one slash with his claws on each ankle.

Transformer grimaced before toppling over onto the ground. Garfield crawled up, going over its back, standing strong on the back of its head before transforming and sitting down as his regular form. He watched as some of the superheroes tried to stand up, groaning in pain.

Garfield shook his head, sighing disappointedly. "You know," He said loudly, getting their attention, "I have to say that even though this isn't really a comedy...I really feel like laughing."

He watched as the five walked over to him, serious expressions on their faces, when Garfield could see their expressions. "You guys are strong, individually. You're unique, but if you're going to get anywhere as a superhero, you'll need a team. Bad guys are smarter these days, and they usually outnumber us too, so you should probably take a page from their book."

Duel shook his head, "I already told you, I don't do teams."

"Then you don't do much." Garfield said with a severe expression, "What you guys just did was the worst sight of crime fighting I've ever seen, and I know bad..." He sighed, deciding to take a calmer approach, "Look, I'm not saying that you can't do it on your own. Superman started off that way and so did a lot of other superheroes. Either way though, you're better off learning as a group. Trust me, you won't regret it, and if you're thinking about the future, being a Teen Titan is a good thing to put on a resume."

"Sure if you don't have a secret identity..." Void said while he scratched the back of his head.

Garfield looked over at him with raised eyebrows, "You don't even have a costume!"

Void laughed nervously in response. Then, Garfield looked over at the rest of them, "Look, as the Teen Titans you'll have a much better chance at making a difference and a name for yourself. Fulfill more than two years at the Titan's Tower, and I can almost guarantee an invitation from the Justice League the minute you leave." Garfield looked between each of them, trying to gauge their expressions as best he could.

"I'll have the Tower unlocked by the end of the day. If you decide that you're going to join the team, temporarily or otherwise, I'll be waiting there, you have until this evening to decide." Garfield then looked around, hearing sirens as the police began to arrive. The five teenagers looked at each other, walking away from the location one-by-one.

--

At the base of the tower, around 9:00 PM, five people, teenagers stood in front of the door. They stayed silent, all in costume (mostly) before one walked up to the doorway and pressed the doorbell gently.

The door opened suddenly, and the first person was cautious before walking through. The other four followed after, shuffling and stomping respectively until they reached and went up the elevator.

They walked into a common room, with a kitchen and a large window looking out at the Jump City in the nighttime. Duel walked forward under the lights, listening as something crunched under his feet. He looked down, seeing a piece of paper and picking it up.

"_Follow the arrows, and we will start your training...padawans..."_

Duel rolled his eyes before looking at the arrows and following after them, moving into a hallway, finding that the others followed him , until they reached what looked like a private gym. Several tools for working out, a training arena and punching bags. In the middle, stood the green hero with a smile on his face.

"All right boys and girls, introductions between each of you are the most important thing. We need to know each other before we're a real team. Give a few specifics on your skills and powers, let's go!"

There was silence, before the ninja stepped forward, "My name...Shuriken. Shuri' for short. My training is in the way of the Ninja. My power is...to hide in shadow." She spoke with a heavy accent, pulling down the scarf over her face.

"Comet," said a robotic voice. The red armored superhero stepped forward, "I wear this suit...for my protection. I am capable of flight, super strength, and have an arsenal of different weapons at my disposal."

"I'm Void Walker, but you can call me Void." Said the boy in casual wear, his face now covered by a small bandana with slits for eyes. Garfield rolled his eyes at the idea of his...costume. "I can teleport to any place by folding space, and I can pull things out from different locations, like weapons, armor...you know, useful stuff."

"...Duel..." He stated simply as he crossed his arms in front of him. Garfield moved his hands in a circular motion, asking him to go on. Duel rolled his eyes as he stated, "I'm a specialist in hand-to-hand, dual swordsmanship, and dual gunmanship. I have no powers, but it doesn't stop me."

"Um...my name...is Angel." Said a glowing face, and a shy smile. "I...have wings? I can...use light to do...anything...I can hurt, and heal, and make light a kind of cushion. Um...I have...a little bit of telepathy and telekinesis."

Garfield nodded, clapping his hands loudly and getting each of their attention. "Good, first day and we all know each other well enough to fight together...to a certain extent. I'm here to help you work together a bit better than usual."

He cracked his neck, and popped his knuckles as he stretched his legs out a bit. "All right, you have your first mission right in front of you. Let's go..." He said as he raised his hands, relaxed his stance and waited. The five teens looked at each other before looking back at Garfield with confusion.

"Seriously," Garfield said with a toothy grin, "let's see how well you do against an original Teen Titan."

Duel narrowed his eyes before pulling out his two bokugens, "If you say so..." He whispered, falling into a stance and feeling the presence of the rest of the group fall into it as well.

Garfield's grin widened as he switched his footing, "That's the way! Now, Titan's Go!"

--

I hope you enjoy and got a little more out of each character here. Any questions, let me know and I'm willing to answer. Thanks for reading, and please give me a review? I'd appreciate it.

Hawk Strife


	3. Allies First, Friends Second

Hello all, evidently, this is very late I know. Anyhow, I hope you still like this and like me after you've read through this chapter. I have fun writing this thing, I hope you have as much fun reading it. Any critiques? Let me know at the end.

--

Two weeks after the Teen Titans were put together once more, Garfield came to the realization of how difficult it was to be leader at all times. The five teenage superheroes would have a hard time getting along in general, although he was happy that a few friendships were coming together.

Still there were some that truly could not get along with others. Comet and Duel were the classic example.

On a Saturday, all five of the teenage Titans were together. It was late into the morning, with most of the group completely awake, including Garfield. Void was struggling to crawl out of bed, but at this moment it was fairly normal for everyone.

In the gym, Comet and Duel were working on different things. Duel held both his blades and had hung up his trench coat for the moment. He slashed the air with precision, small beads of sweat appearing on his skin. His black undershirt was beginning to dampen with his sweat.

The sound of sparks suddenly came out, causing Duel to furrow his brow as he continued to slash through the air, the speed of his weapons quick and accurate. Another spark sounded once, causing Duel to grit his teeth as he continued his training exercises. He turned on his heel, listening as the sparks continued one after another, before Duel growled.

There was silence for a moment as he paused, and he could finally feel his heartbeat calm down. Sparks broke the silence and Duel felt his patience snap. He widened his eyes and finally let out a yell of frustration as he through his wooden swords at the source of his annoyance. They bounced harmlessly off the red armor Comet wore.

He had a leg compartment open, and had been using a small torch to fire through and make changes in the wires. He also had a part of the left arm up, showing a small screen with scans. Both closed as the two swords bounced off of him, and Comet stood up. "That was not necessary," Comet said through the voice scrambler.

"Really? Well I don't think it's necessary for you to be making repairs anywhere but your own room!" Duel half-shouted while shaking his fist. After doing so he quickly took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down once more.

"This takes a lot of concentration and effort, but that does not mean I'd rather stay in my room all day. Maybe you should be more understanding about situations like my own."

Duel looked away and crossed his arms, grinding his teeth against each other. His breathing was forcefully steadied, but his grip on his arm was still tense.

"It's unlike you to lose your calm." Comet commented casually as he slid the bokugen over the mat, sending it towards Duel's feet casually. Duel stooped down to pick it up with his free hand before returning to his training.

Comet returned to his armor shortly after, believing that the confrontation was over. More sparks sounded in the room than before, bringing Duel to wonder if he was doing it on purpose. He decided to try and be peaceful about it this time, "Ok Comet, I can't practice my exercises while you're doing that. Would you please stop?" He said forcefully.

"I've got enough to worry about, and I haven't done a checkup in a while, I'd rather not." Comet said casually as the number of sparks continued. Duel looked over at him with wide eyes, before finally deciding his patience was completely gone.

He rushed forward suddenly, forcing Comet to look up in surprise before closing the compartments and blocking a sudden attack from a bokugen. "I've tried being nice, it fails. But that's ok, you asked for it!" Duel yelled as he slashed at Comet's armor, causing a miniscule scratch.

Comet used his boosters to stand up as quickly as possible, pushing Duel back a few steps. "Please, you practice every day anyhow, you could do with a break." He said as he brought up an arm to deflect an attack.

"If I could do with a break from training, then you could do with a break from that armor." Duel replied without missing a beat, his wooden swords bounced harmlessly off of Comet's metal armor, but still he slashed as hard as he could.

"I need to keep it up with maintenance on a regular basis, I can't help that."

Duel shook his head frustrated as he crossed Comets arms underneath his swords. "No, you can do that outside of the armor. You know what it's like outside of the armor right? The way the rest of us are?" Duel said with a condescending tone, but the response was unexpected.

After he landed on some of the weights did he realize that his face hurt, a lot. He looked back over at Comet in surprise, to see that he had been punched by the armored hand. Comet seemed to stand, thinking about something before bringing his hand down and turning away.

He stomped out of the gym, and Duel was left to painfully push himself back up to a sitting position, looking over himself for any extra bruises. "We haven't even fought a villain this week, geez..."

"Dude! What the hell did you do now?"

Duel stood up in surprise, hands up and feet spread in a fighting stance, as he faced the voice that had appeared out of nowhere. Void Walker half-screamed as he covered his face and raised his leg in defense. Duel sighed at what he was looking at, letting his arms fall to his side. "Voi' you should know better than to sneak up on me like that."

"Oh come on," Void said with a grin as he himself calmed down, "It keeps you on your feet. And it's Void, with a d."

"You picked a bad name to say in battle, that's not my fault." Duel said. He picked up his two swords and looked over the marks, before walking over to his pistols and placing them on a bench to begin cleaning.

"Oh and I suppose Duel is much easier to say quickly."

"...Yeah..." Duel said with a smile, "It is." He listened as Void huffed in exasperation before he began to take apart the first of his two pistols. He was not meant to go farther than to take out the cartridge when the alarm sounded.

Duel shut his eyes tightly, "Damn..." He quickly replaced all the parts for his gun and holstered each of his weapons before running over to the common room, throwing on his trench coat, followed quickly by Void.

Garfield stood in front of a large screen, an annoyed look on his face as he turned around. "...This won't be fun..."

--

A bank on the outskirts of Jump City was being robbed. The well armed police unit of the city stood at the ready just outside its entrance with their weapons aimed towards the busted door. 

For more than a few minutes, there had been the sound of something grinding or cutting into a hard surface.

But the sound had ended minutes before, and there was little doubt that whatever the villain had done inside, he was done and was preparing to make his escape. Officers tightened their grips on their weapons as their helmets scanned the entrance continuously. They had surrounded the villains vehicle, he would have to come out in order to get to it.

At least, that was what the officers were thinking.

The sound of gears turning, computers warming up, and wheels grinding against the surface of the road forced each of them to turn towards the vehicle in shock, and some fear. The large single wheel that was the vehicle suddenly began to start and move on its own. It balanced itself and rode over one of the police vehicles, pummeling through a SWAT car, as it moved towards the entrance.

It turned on its own, sliding and stopping just in front of the steps, as the villain exited the building with a big grin and no rush. He was shorter than many expected with several pounds of money, gold and other trinkets in a machine that walked like a spider, heading straight towards the wheeled vehicle.

He moved the small goggles from his forehead, covering his eyes as he calmly sat down inside of his vehicle, the spider-machine already incorporating itself with the rest of the machinery after storing the valuables.

"See you later scum-buckets! I'll be sure to take good care of all my money for you!" He yelled with an annoyingly high and grating voice. He was obviously older than when the Teen Titans were forced to deal with him the first time, but few of his antics had changed. Gizmo was still an annoying villain.

But his genius with mechanics made him a force to be reckoned with, which became evident to every officer as the "Gizmo-Wheel" started up again and began to speed down the road and away from the bank, running over another cop car.

Gizmo was just about ready to start counting his money, when he made a turn and suddenly found that there was a large road in front of him. He barely had time to yell as he fell into it. The Grooves of the wheel continued to push through the dirt and chunks of road, before moving up and flying out of the hole at top speed.

The wheel kept spinning in the air before landing on the hard road, stopping completely as Gizmo hit the brakes. Remarkably, the wheel stood upright, and Gizmo stepped out. He turned his head from side to side, searching for the one responsible.

He found nothing, and shrugged his shoulders as he turned around to get into his vehicle again, only to find that it was not there anymore. "What the!? Hey!" He looked over his wrist, pressing a button and listening as wheels began to screech in the distance.

"Well that was less time than I'd hoped for. But five against one is hardly a challenge still."

Gizmo turned around quickly, looking up at his tall green foe. "Aw, it's the barf-boy, how have you been old chum?"

"Better, if I didn't have you here causing trouble."

"Aw well, a villain's got to eat." Gizmo said with a shrug of his shoulders and a grin on his face.

"Oh you'll get to eat all right," Angel said from above, her arms were placed over her hips as she floated, "I hear that Prison serves good oatmeal."

Gizmo gave a half-hearted thumb up, "Yum," He then jumped back and pressed another button, this one on one of his backpack straps. "Well, too bad I won't go without a fight."

Several metallic spider legs shot out and stabbed into the ground, lifting Gizmo off of the ground, all of them coming out of backpack. He continued to grin through his goggles, "Ready to give up scuzz-bucket?"

"Gizmo, the Teen Titans wouldn't dare ruin their record of trashing you in a fight." Garfield said smiling, before pointing forward, "All right Titans, it's time to roll!"

"Teen Titans!?" Gizmo shouted as he looked to see Angel suddenly send a beam of light down towards him. He moved, but one of his legs got caught in the beam, melting through. "I didn't know there was a team of Teen Titans here! I thought it was just you!"

"News must travel slow then," Garfield said calmly as he stood straight with arms crossed, he began to grin slightly, "Good for us."

Gizmo ducked suddenly, just under a few throwing daggers. He found Shuriken to be the source of the attack, before using two rocket backs to send out a few mini-rockets. The loud noise of the rocket fuel burning drowned out the gunshots that eventually destroyed each and every rocket.

"I'd love to introduce ourselves before attacking, but I'm sure they'll talk about it on the news for a few days before the story dies down." Comet said as he fired a few of his own mini-rockets, destroying another one of Gizmo's legs.

He had six legs left, and Gizmo realized his real dilemma. He was outgunned, outnumbered, and outlegged. He decided to turn and begin to run towards his wheel as it came towards him still, he blinked in confusion as he stopped suddenly. He looked down to see why, the engine powering the legs under his backpack was sliced open by a sharp object.

He sighed as the legs began to lose power, before pressing another button, jettisoning the entire contraption. "Always have a backup plan," He yelled down as he began to use his pack as a jetpack, flying away from the Teen Titans.

"I completely agree!" Said a voice next to him, causing Gizmo to turn in surprise and sigh at the sight of Angel flying next to him. He sighed as she flew in front of him, and pulled back a fist. Gizmo felt the punch impact against his jaw, sending him flying back towards the Teen Titans. His backpack skid along the road, losing layer after layer of machinery until Gizmo finally stopped, with half of his backpack scattered along the ground.

"You should know better by now Gizmo, Teen Titans always have a backup plan." Garfield said as he stood over Gizmo, three of the Titans standing around him with weapons drawn and aimed down towards him. Angel landed near them and then looked around.

"Guys, where's Void?" She asked before listening to another screeching noise and turned around to see a large wheel suddenly turn the corner, with Void barely hanging on to the edge of one of the many screens.

The Titans got into a fighting stance, but they were forced to duck out of the way as the Wheel suddenly braked and stopped right in front of Gizmo. He grinned as he climbed up off of the ground and ran towards his ride.

He grabbed Void, who'd barely managed to keep holding on, and threw him off of the wheel completely, before climbing into it and took off down the road. "See ya later morons!" He yelled back with a laugh.

Duel frowned as he pulled up both of his guns and pulled the trigger on them both. He heard the familiar bangs for four shots, before he heard another familiar sound. A clicking sound, with no bang. He tried to pull the trigger again, but it would not budge against his fingers. "My guns are jammed!"

Comet seemed to scoff as he aimed his arm down towards the retreating Gizmo, transforming it into the beam cannon. A spark of electricity came off of the charging cannon, before an explosion suddenly appeared on the side of it, sending Comet sliding across the ground a few feet.

"That's not good." Void barely had time to say before Comet slid across his feet, sending him to the ground again. "Ow!...damnit..."

Garfield sighed, slapping his hand over his forehead. For the first time in a long time, Gizmo was going to escape a superhero. His thoughts were interrupted at the sound of another crash, and Garfield looked up to see the wheel land and skid across the road. He noticed that Shuriken was missing and he sighed in relief, there was still a little dignity that had been saved.

--

As Gizmo was being cuffed and captured by the police, Garfield placed a hand over his face. He tried his best to calm his mind, and relax his furrowed brow as he looked over two Titans.

Once again, he realized that being the leader was not all it was cracked up to be. Along with that, he began to realize he had also taken the role of teacher at some point. And now, he had to look between the two Titans that nearly let Gizmo escape.

After much though and staring at the two, he shrugged his shoulders. No one was perfect, and it was evident to him that they knew there was a mistake made by both members.

"I was unable," Comet then started, gaining Garfield's attention, "to finish making repairs and maintenances to my suit. Had it not been for Duel's interruption of my process..."

Duel looked up quickly and turned towards Comet with an angry look, "Are you kidding? If it weren't for the fact that you kept distracting me in the gym, I might have had time to clean through my pistols. It's because of you that they jammed, just as the midget was trying to get away!"

The two ignored Gizmo's yell as they proceeded to give each other a death stare. Garfield could not bear to look at the two as he placed a hand to cover his eyes.

The two began to increase their volumes in their yells at each other. Garfield sighed at what he listened to, interrupting rest, meditation, work, exercises, maintenances, reading, and more. Garfield had not realized there had been so many problems.

He let his fist fall into his hand as he came to a decision. It was time to put an end to this fight. He raised his hand, and took a deep breath, prepared to end the fight and start a lecture that would undoubtedly either make him look responsible, or foolish.

He was interrupted, by the sound of a crash and a roar. Along with that, came the sound of policemen yelling as they ran away, or were thrown by something. Garfield barely had time to react when the prison van that was about to take Gizmo with it was suddenly picked up and tossed to the side.

The sight of a large man with orange hair and wearing black and yellow armor was enough to tell him who he was dealing with. He immediately prepared to jump into battle, "Titans move!" He shouted as he charged, transforming into a gorilla and facing the villain known as Mammoth head on.

He reached out to deliver a normally bone-crushing punch, but found himself grappled and thrown over the shoulder. Only his quick reflexes saved him from landing on his back and imprinting himself onto a building. A quick spin was all it took for him to slow down and land on his feet.

He looked up in time to see the rest of the Teen Titans take charge. They moved in quickly, while Mammoth continued to run with Gizmo under his arm. The momentum of the giant man caused Void to teleport himself out of the way just before he was crushed. The other teen heroes could barely move, as Mammoth's charge sent him into a building, causing a large hole on the side.

Comet boosted towards it, followed by a sprinting Duel who drew his wooden blades. Garfield morphed into a raven and flapped his wings after them. He stopped when something shook the entire building, and bricks and stone began to be pushed out of the wall, before the roof caved in on itself, and the building began to collapse.

He transformed back into his human form, and rolled to the side as a pile of bricks fell where he had been standing moments before. He took several steps back and watched as the building fell, turning into a pile of rubble within a few minutes. Dust was kicked up by the sudden fall, and Garfield was forced to shut his eyes and cover his face as it fell on him.

There was silence, but only for a few moments. Garfield quickly moved up and out of the dust cloud, turning into a raven again, and circling around the debris. He waited for the dust to settle before landing, and transforming back into his human form.

"Titans assemble!" He yelled out and waited. He watched as Shuri' appeared out of the shadow of a different building, and Angel floated down to the ground. As she touched down lightly, Garfield changed his eyes into that of an eagle's, looking around for any sign of the three missing heroes. The wind suddenly changed slightly, as if something suddenly started to block a part of it. Along with it, came a scent that Garfield was becoming familiar with. He turned towards Void to see that he was soaked from head to toe and grinning nervously.

Garfield kept shifting his eyes, searching for the other two Titans. But they were nowhere to be found, at least not in front of him. He looked over to the rubble of the building and ran over to it, transforming into a gorilla and beginning to pull off large chunks of concrete.

--

Deep below the rubble, crawled out a boy covered in dust and gravel. He stood up, his trench coat covered with tears and marks that he knew proved just how ruined it was. Duel felt through his holsters and sheaths, finding that he was missing both his swords, and one of his guns. He looked back from the pile he had just crawled out from under, and began to search silently.

His eyes came across a wooden hilt and he kneeled down, pulling on it, only to find that the hilt was all that was left. He sighed as he tossed it over his shoulder, listening as it made a splash. He turned around in surprise, his eyes adjusted to the darkness by then, he realized he was underground. To be specific, he was standing in the sewers, a large and old system of sewers that ran under the city.

He turned back towards the rubble and scratched the back of his head as he continued to look through and search for any of his weapons. He found his other sword lodged between a few stones, relatively intact and one of his pistols hidden underneath other piles of rubble. He was fairly well equipped and had all his weapons holstered, when the sound of sparks and movement caught his attention.

He looked in the general direction before remembering who he had run into the building with. He swore underneath his breath as he broke out into a run towards the source of the sound. He had been right, in the point that Comet was the one who had been making the sounds. Thankfully, he was wrong in the idea that he was in dire need of repair.

Comet moved slightly, before Duel kneeled down and grabbed onto his arms. "Can you move?" He asked as he tugged slowly, listening to the armor scrape against the concrete.

Comet answered with a garbled message, Duel guessed that the voice box had taken a hit. He pulled a little stronger now, feeling Comet wrap his hands around Duel's arms and trying to help 

in moving out. Before long, Comet was out from under the rubble. Duel then looked over the damage as Comet pulled himself up onto his feet.

His armor seemed fairly scraped and banged up, and a few loose wires could be seen. "Well you don't look too worn down...think you can make it to an exit?" Duel asked and received a nod as a response.

Duel started down a path through the waters that led away from the rubble, but stopped when Comet did not follow. He turned around, noticing that Comet was moving slowly, with one of his legs trailing behind him slightly. Duel turned around and took one of Comet's arms over his shoulder before helping him move along through the waters.

He stayed silent as he helped Comet for a few minutes, with Comet making a few sparks on his neck. Before too long, the voice box returned, "Sorry...about that..."

"About what?" Duel asked with little emotion in his voice, merely continuing along the way.

"The burden part, I should have been able to deal with that kind of thing easily under the right maintenance..."

Duel blew out some air between his lips before looking over towards him, "Yeah well...we're pretty lucky right now, let's just take care of repairs and heals when we get out of here huh?"

Comet nodded; there was no need for a fight right now. The two continued through the waters for a few more minutes in silence, before a rumble shook the waters and the walls. The two stopped for a moment, looking at each other and then at the walls as it rumbled again.

Comet looked around, pressing a button on his arm. A screen appeared within his helmet, but the picture was blurry. "Even my scanners were badly affected," he said in his robotic voice.

"Any idea what that was?" Duel said, a hand attached to his intact bokugen. Another rumble came, followed by another just after it. It grew louder and more fierce.

"I get the feeling we're about to find out!" Comet said sternly, and had one of his arms transform into a gun. "Sure hope this works this time..."

The rumbling continued and nearly became constant, before it stopped suddenly just when it had reached what seemed like it was coming close to Duel and Comet. The two looked at each other, keeping their battle-ready stances towards the walls.

A howl echoed through the tunnels causing the two heroes to look around in surprise, before a wall suddenly burst through, with bricks and shards of stone flying into the air. There stood Mammoth, with a toothy grin on his face and a short super-villain known as Gizmo on his shoulder.

The two heroes looked up at them, before Comet fired his weapon. A strong blast of energy crashed against Mammoth, but seemed to not affect him at all. Gizmo jumped off of Mammoth's shoulders, and from a new backpack came several robotic arms that grabbed onto Duel, nearly pinning him down.

He quickly cut through one of the metal arms through a powerful cut from his wooden blade, forcing Gizmo to rethink his strategy and pull back the arms he had left. Duel did not let for much rest as he held his saber against his waist, ready to be drawn as a Samurai would.

He charged forward as quickly as his feet could take him as he drew his blade in one strong slash. The two stood still for a moment, before Gizmo fell to the ground gasping for the air that had been knocked out. Duel looked down at his bokugen, realizing that his last attack had finished it, leaving only the hilt behind.

He dropped it, pulling off his trench coat and throwing it to the side. He held his hands up in fists before charging towards Gizmo. Gizmo turned around, barely regaining some of his air as he shot several of the metal arms towards Duel. Duel dodged as best he could, bending his back and moving his arms to help him jump and cartwheel over arms in a splendid fashion. But the arms suddenly turned into many small ones, and Duel found one of his hands wrapped tightly by the metal substance.

Comet circled Mammoth and dodged his charge into the wall as best he could, before firing another blast towards his back. He limped to a better spot to try and dodge again, before Mammoth picked up a few stones and hurled them towards him at great speed. Comet barely had time to destroy it with his gun, before realizing the distraction and finding himself punched through one of the walls by Mammoth.

He crashed into the dirty water, before pushing himself up slowly and standing up again with a little difficulty. Mammoth came charging towards him again, but this time, grabbed him and threw him back towards where he had just been punched from. He bounced off the ground and smashed into the other wall.

Duel was able to see Comet get thrashed through a wall twice, before twisting his arms around, trying to get the metal arms off of him. He pulled one back and then kicked at it, bending it a bit but not enough to weaken the hold it had on him.

Then, a powered shot suddenly rang out. It felt like it whizzed past Duel's ear, before he looked down to see that Gizmo was standing on his own with all of his metal creations on the ground, trying to get back up. "What the frick! Hey!"

Without another moment, Duel reached out and punched Gizmo into the ground. He did not wait to see if it had knocked Gizmo out as he sprinted through the dirty water towards where the shot had come from, Comet.

Comet started to stand up on his feet when Mammoth came through the wall again, charging and roaring at the same time. Comet was dive-tackled out of the way at the last second, and Mammoth crashed through the next wall.

Duel stood up from the dirty water, looking around for his enemies before he pulled Comet up on his feet. Mammoth roared as he came through the hole he had just created. He found Comet and Duel in his sights before gritting his teeth and charging towards them at full speed.

Comet moved out of the way as Duel ran forward, hooking his arm on the larger arm of Mammoth and pulling himself onto his shoulder. He had to duck low because of the low ceiling but had more things to worry about when Mammoth realized who was on him. He reached over to grab Duel, but Duel ducked under the other arm and jumped onto the next shoulder.

He pulled his arm back, making his hand straight and rigid before thrusting it forward towards Mammoth's neck. His finger hit a spot, a move that was deliberate and efficiently achieved through years of training and studying. He hit a nerve, one which rendered Mammoth's limbs completely useless as he suddenly flopped into a wall, denting it but miraculously not breaking through.

Duel got up from the top of Mammoth's back and looked around him, the sewers were a mess but it seemed like there was finally some peace. Gizmo was beginning to make some movements but they stopped at the sound of a gun charging up over his head, and the red armored hero standing with it.

Duel let out a sigh of relief and relaxed as one of the sewer lids were opened suddenly, letting in a bit of light, and down it came a sight for sore eyes. Shuri moved in first and landed in the dirty water with no problem, before running over to a waving Duel. Void on the other hand, teleported to the side where it was seemingly dry, a grimace on his face as he tried to avoid breathing. Garfield and Angel did not go down the ladder at all. "I hope you guys realize," They heard Garfield shout, "You're taking a long bath after this!"

Duel shook his head as he helped Shuri move Mammoth closer to Void. "I'll try and fit it into my schedule." Duel set with a roll of his eyes.

--

Before too long, the team was back in the Tower. Garfield made good on his promise on forcing each of them to find a way to get clean. Everyone else used the showers, while Comet made use of a high-pressured water dispenser. As powerful as an air-duster and with a very minute amount of water but enough to be noticeable.

Duel had been the first to get into the shower and left soon after. He was clean and did not smell like anything that would sour a conversation. He looked over himself in his undershirt and sweat pants, a slight frown over his face. He had to put his dirty clothes in the washer before he took the bath.

His guns were still jammed and probably need somewhat of a cleaning, although nothing else was clogged in there. Along with that, he had to look for new Bokugens, which would probably take a small while. As he looked over his pistols he noticed that most of the group (Save Void who was still taking a shower) was in the common room hanging out together. He shrugged as he walked over to the dinner table and laid down a towel under his two guns.

He sat down and began to take them apart and clean them with a rag, an unemotional face as he went on through the monotonous task. He began to realize that the room was nowhere near silent while he was doing this. After Void had finally left the bathroom, Shuri entered quickly, making sure to trip Void over for taking so long.

Garfield was trying to teach Angel how to play a video game, and Comet was back to making the necessary modifications and maintenance for his armor. For some reason however, Duel was not distracted. In fact, he became even more focused on his work, which seemed to clear his mind and block out the rest of the group around him.

His face grew a smile as he finished reassembling one of his pistols and cocked it in a swift jerk. He placed it down on the table, with the same smile. "You know," He heard over to the side, making him notice that Void was speaking to him, "you look kinda weird with that smile on your face, and that gun in your hand."

Duel raised an eyebrow, "You look kinda weird with a towel on."

Void looked over himself, before disappearing completely.

--

Elsewhere, in a prison where many of the Teen Titans former and current villains spend their time for the crimes that they have committed, a dangerous weapons expert was looking over several marks for the days that he had been inside.

An explosion suddenly sounded from that wall, sending him to the ground, taking cover. He looked up over his arms, covered in dust and rocks, only to see a bright light aimed towards him.

"Cannon," it said over a loud speaker phone, "Come with me, the Mistress wishes to help and use you." It reached out, using a metallic claw and arm to pick up the stunned Cannon and put him into a compartment before suddenly rolling away. The alarm began to go off soon after, but it was too late.

Cannon had been broken out of prison by someone or thing, and it would not be long before the Teen Titans were called in to investigate.

--

That took too long to finish. I've been working on the last few pages for like a few weeks it sucks. Ah well, it's done now so there's nothing to worry about for a little while.

I hope you enjoyed it and let me know what you thought specifically. Thanks for reading it!

Hawk Strife


	4. Cannon Fire!

This took me two weeks on and off. I probably could have done it in one week, and that is what I will aim for next time. Hopefully I can pull it off, but with two jobs I'm not going to be able to make any real promises. Two weeks however, I can promise as they seem fairly reasonable for the average amount that I write in each chapter. (I try to do more but it's kind of an experience thing. I still need to level up :P) Anyhow, enjoy this new chapter!

--

The morning after the apparent escape of Cannon, the Teen Titans were called to the prison in order to look at the damage and hopefully find clues.

"I have no doubt that Cannon had someone help him escape..." Garfield remembered the warden's words clearly in his mind, "Specific cameras were shut down and replaced with a repeating picture, while something followed a pathway towards the cell, and then back out the way it came."

Whatever had taken Cannon out of the Prison, the only thing left behind by it were the tracks. Duel and Shuri' looked them over at the hole in the wall of the prison, while Void and Comet scouted around, seeing if they could follow the tracks any farther than the outside of the prison. Finally, Angel was back at the tower, packing her things; it was Sunday and she would leave for home by the end of the afternoon.

Shuri' looked around the hold, noticing that several pieces of stone were scattered inside the cell, but not too far in. "Something with immense strength pushed against these walls and made an opening, fairly slowly and silently."

Duel nodded in agreement, "I see that, and the tracks suggest that this was some sort of vehicle." Duel kneeled down towards the treads and poked at a puddle. He found his finger covered in a black substance and sighed as he wiped it off with his trench coat. He got some of it off but not all.

Before he could say anything, Garfield grabbed his hand and looked over the oil covered finger, or at least the oil that Duel could not remove with the trench coat. Garfield stepped away and pulled out the Titan communicator, and opened it.

"This is Gar, calling Comet and Void."

"Comet here," he responded almost immediately.

"Void-" the transmission was cut off by a static for a second before he came on the screen, "Here too!"

"How are you doing?" Garfield asked as he walked away from what remained of the cell. He stepped outside, walking along the ground and following the tracks somewhat.

"Tracks split off into multiple treads a while ago, Void and I decided to split up."

"Did any of them have an oil trail on them?" Garfield asked.

"Not that I can see on mine, hold on a sec." Comet hovered over the treads. He hovered over the tracks, pressing a button and beginning to scan them. He shook his head, "No, I don't see any oil on these treads. How about you Void?"

He listened over the com as he spoke, "Not...really...aw man, I think I stepped in something."

"Void," Garfield started, "Can you check where the original set of treads end and see if there's oil from there.

"Yeah, I'll get right on it...ew..."

There was another burst of static for a second before Void was standing back on the edge of the original set of treads. From them, spread five different direction of the same kind of tread. But when Void kneeled down he found the oil spots only followed the original tread, not the other five.

"What do you see?" Garfield asked.

"I see oil on the first one, but the ones that split up are clean."

"Decoys..." Comet said and then crossed his arms as he hovered over the track. "So, what now?"

"Comet, go ahead and follow the tracks full speed, see what you can find at the end of the line. The rest of us will go back to the Tower and see what we can use from the clues we have." Garfield said and then closed the com-link. Before he could blink, Void had already teleported directly in front of him.

"By the way, can I go straight to the tower, I'm sure Angel is about to leave by now." Void said with a grin, to which Garfield could only nod with a roll of his eyes. Void was gone instantly, and the other three heroes were forced to follow in their own ways. Garfield transformed into a 

bird, while Shuri' became the shadows and followed suit at a quick speed. Duel on the other hand, walked while he massaged his temples, it was a long walk back to Titans tower.

--

Far enough away from Jump City, a military propeller transport plane flew a hundred feet over the surface of the ocean, either unseen or ignored by whatever radar network was covering the area.

Before long it reached a secluded isle. Deserted with jungles and mountainous terrain, a clichéd paradise away from civilization. But as the plane neared the island, the trees moved and the sand shifted, there was no road for it to land on, but a simple and round platform.

The plane slowed, and lowered its altitude even more. As it neared the platform it slowed until it hovered eerily over the platform, showing no sign that the plane was nothing more than a propeller plane. It lowered steadily and landed, without pulling out a landing gear. It stood still before the platform lowered and closed, before being covered by the sand and trees once more.

The 'lair' that this plane was being brought into was dark, and seemed cold and clammy although there were no stones or jagged rocks. Instead, there were tall metallic walls, lines running through them for the different sized and shaped plates that covered the walls.

The platform continued to lower until it suddenly stopped suddenly and loudly with a clank. The image of the plane shifted, before disappearing completely. From the disappearing image was the sight of a steel plated aircraft, with a walkway opening from the aft.

Down moved a large machine, using treads to travel down onto the metal floor. It looked like a toy tank, with a short cannon and metal claws on each side of it. There was a large compartment with a door on its front, and as it came to a stop in front of a large screen. It used its metal claws to open the compartment and pull out the man known as Cannon, dressed in an orange prison uniform and dropped in front of the screen.

Cannon looked from side to side, disoriented by being in a dark cramped location for so long and then thrown out into the bright open again. The screen powered on suddenly and on it was the shadowed image of a person. A voice, feminine in tone, spoke through the speakers that seemed to echo around the room, "Hello Cannon..."

He looked up at the shadowed image before raising an eyebrow and yelling, "Who? Who rescued me from my prison? So that I may thank them personally!"

The shadowed figure gave a slight chuckle before silently point behind Cannon, straight at the machine, "That machine is Tanka, a little toy I made up in order to take care of highly fortified structures. It may have been overkill for a prison, but its ability to hack into any computer mainframe is very useful, taking care of the cameras that would have spotted him coming a mile away."

"And what of you my queen?" Cannon said without batting an eye, and grinning widely.

Her figure laughed a little louder after this, before stepping out of the shadow showing that she wore a mask, one of a Japanese Fox. "I have no name, but you can call me Queen if you so desire..."

"And for what reason have you rescued me?" Cannon asked on one knee, his eyes glimmered. He knelt and spoke as if a Knight spoke to his Queen.

"You like weapons..." She said, and he nodded fervently. "And I like to build them. I propose a small partnership; I will create weapons for you to test out."

"To test out brand new kinds of weapons...a dream I have never thought possible!" He half-shouted, and grinned. "I accept my Queen!"

"Good, I already have something for you to use...Tanka, make sure he's ready, we test out everything by the end of the day." She whispered and then the screen turned off. At that moment, the machine grabbed Cannon and pulled him towards a flat bed, strapping him in. For the first time, the machine then spoke in a robotic voice, devoid of emotion.

"This will sting..."

The lights when out, and Cannon gave off a scream of laughter, an expression that was either that of happiness or incredible pain.

--

Back at Titans Tower, the team was saying their goodbyes to Angel as she prepared to fly out with a small duffel bag of her clothing. She gave small hugs to each of the Titans, before moving off into the air and flapping her wings, soaring higher into the air.

The Titans, most of them anyways, waited on the roof. Waving and trying to see their disappearing friend and teammate, before they walked down the stairs and into the common room.

There they found Duel, just walking inside looking tired and slightly annoyed. He noticed that even Comet had beaten him back to the tower, and Void walked up to him with an arched eyebrow. "You know, Angel left a few minutes ago right?"

Duel looked back at him, shifting his jaw slightly as he responded, "You know I have no sort of transportation right?"

Void looked at him and then slapped his head, "Duh! Why didn't you ask me to come and get you? You know, I can teleport me and other people when they are touching me."

"You left before I had a chance to ask..." Duel said as he crossed his arms, waiting for his friend to continue.

"Well...it looks like you got here just fine and dandy. How'd you get here? Hitched a ride with Nightwing?"

"I took the bus..."

"Oh..." Void thought it over before disappearing for a few seconds and then reappearing right in front of Duel, "Yeah that doesn't look fun at all..."

Duel frowned before grabbing his friend by the shoulder, "You...owe me...money for that bus ticket..."

"What!? Oh come on!" Void yelled under the grip of his friend, before realizing that Duel had his arm around Void's neck and had tightened. Void could not free himself on his own strength. As he pushed and pulled on Duel's arms, he accidentally began to shift from one part of the tower to another, accidentally moving outside of the tower and into a freefall, before Void realized his mistake and got them back into the tower, crashing onto the floor and rolling away from each other.

"All right you two!" Garfield finally said as he stepped in, "Enough rough-housing, you'll have time for that after the mission's been looked over and we come up with some theories on who or what took Cannon out of prison."

Duel looked up at Garfield before standing up slowly and sighing. He then gave a straight face and a quick nod, "Sure Lead."

"I'm good too..." Void said a bit more tiredly as he stood up slowly. There was an obvious difference in stamina levels, but Void was not one to lie about something like that. He made sure it was quite obvious.

The Teen Titans moved over to a different floor. It was turned into a kind of briefing room, which was decided by Nightwing while he was still leader of the Teen Titans. Garfield had felt nothing different in the change, but wondered if Nightwing had been trying to give a more military look to the Teen Titans.

The floor consisted of several rooms, ranging from tactical war-room with a large strategy table for a map, and a small room with several chairs meant for a run through of objectives, information, and what theories existed.

This was where they were headed, and as each Titan took a seat in front of the view screen, Garfield moved ahead and stood beside it. He typed a few keys and was given the image of Cannon's prison picture, automatically diming the lights.

There was a grin on Cannons face as he stood for the picture. It was not the same grin he had as he fired his guns, instead it seemed as if he was genuinely smiling for the camera. It was strange for the Teens to see such a man with what simply seemed like a lack of common sense.

"Cannon" Garfield began, "His real name is Jacobo Elezando, and he used to be a guerilla fighter in Colombia. However, he just decided that the guerillas had more interesting weapons and tactics...he actually didn't care about what they were fighting for."

Garfield tapped on a keyboard a few times, searching through google for a newspaper clipping. He found it and quickly enlarged it for the screen, "This is a newspaper article from Colombia about the compromise reached between the guerillas and the government. There were a few representatives of the JLA invited to it, which was the only reason that Cannon wasn't able to do as much damage as he could have. In the end though, he managed to escape."

He tapped on the keyboard a few more times, searching through the hard drive for pictures. Several different pictures from the prison were up on the screen, being moved around and enlarged randomly. "From what we can tell through the prison cameras and the tracks that we found, whatever it was that took Cannon out was a machine and had the ability to hack and jam camera signals."

Void raised a hand, "The tracks didn't make it seem like it was that high-tech..."

"No it didn't..." Garfield said as he enlarged the track marks and looked at them closely. "If I were to just guess, these don't look like anything other than a tractor tread."

Duel nodded, "But looks can be deceiving, it may have had those treads in order to use those decoys that they sent out afterwards."

"Oh right!" Garfield looked over at Comet then, "About those, did you find anything?"

"There wasn't much to find. But when I reached the end of one of the lines, it looked like...computer with really big wheels...or treads." Comet opened a slot from his arm and began to type in a few numbers and letters, before a picture appeared on the view screen. There were large treads, the most obvious part of the entire machine, while on top and in the center was a small computer monitor (Or so it seemed). "I gave a few scans on it, and found that it was basically a very simple computer program that made it go towards random directions. It's not a complicated program to make, but it seems like they were a little different for each decoy."

"Sounds like someone with too much time on their hands." Void said to himself as he fiddled with his fingers a bit.

"Actually," Garfield began, "It sounds like someone who was planning on people trying to track Cannon down once he escaped."

"But the leak gave away that there were decoys..." Shuri piped in somewhat shyly.

Garfield nodded somewhat, "Along with that, we haven't really figured out how the original escaped anyhow, but it probably went by air. Seeing as there weren't any other kind of tracks with oil in them..."

"And that means that they've probably reached almost any part of the globe by now..." Duel sighed as he looked up as a picture of Cannon came back up, "I get the feeling that there's no way that we can find them now. Maybe we should just wait for them to find us?"

"Story of my life as a Teen Titan." Garfield said before nodding and turning off the view screen. The lights came on automatically and each of the Teen Titans left moving on to the common room or the gym.

Garfield stayed in the debriefing room for a while and sat down with a sigh. He closed his eyes and leaned back against a chair, "How did Dick do this and not lose sleep over it...?" He looked over at the keyboard, knowing there were several pieces of clues and information that he could 

look over and probably never find the important clue he would need to figure the whole thing out.

He ruffled his hair as he stood up and walked out of the debriefing room, perhaps he was better off letting the teenagers think of an idea on this one. His deduction skills were never close to that of Dick or Vincent, and he knew that deep down most of the Teens could come up with better ideas than he.

The days passed on calmly, and Garfield was looking over an e-mail sent to him by Angel. It had been the first time she had honestly stayed over for the complete weekend and she was letting him know that her parents had not enjoyed it one bit. She had fun, but had missed her parents. In the end, she did not know if she would be willing to stay over again, although she knew that she would continue fighting alongside the team, given the chance.

The week had gone by peacefully, and Garfield found himself wondering less and less about the person behind Cannon's escape. It still bothered him from time to time, but his focus did not stay on it for very long. The problems of teenagers took care of that. "Was I ever this temperamental?" He asked himself as he listened to Comet and Duel fight against each other at full strength in the gym.

Strangely enough, the supposed mayhem that was going on behind him was actually quite peaceful. He did not have to worry about any villains, and he was sitting calmly listening to the antics of several teenagers in one home. He thought about someone else who was currently living a more peaceful life at the moment, and wondered if this was similar to what they were feeling.

His thoughts were interrupted, as the alarm sounded through the tower. He looked up, and turned towards the front of the tower, watching it change into a screen and show a news channel. A reporter was yelling into a microphone over the sound of gun, "-screaming people running away from a man covered in what looks to be high-tech armor and weapons. So far, no casualties have been seen but buildings have taken bullets and missiles. The city has turned into what looks like a warzone with one man fighting several police officers, and unfortunately that one man has the advantage!"

An explosions sounded and the camera moved quickly to the side, as if pushed. It fell to the ground, revealing the legs of the reporter as she ran to the side of the camera, "Oh my god! Kent? Can you hear me?" The feed cut off then as Garfield turned off the view screen and moved towards the exit.

"All right Teen Titans, I hope you're ready!" He said, not realizing that the other four were following closely behind him. "Void, can you get there?"

"It's in a residential area...it may take me a while to find it but I can get there in five seconds at most."

"Good, I want you and Duel to head over there right now. The rest of us will take a little longer trying to catch him by surprise as your reinforcements." Garfield said and watched as Duel reached over and grabbed Void by the shoulder.

Void gulped as he looked over at Duel, "At least you get to pay me back for that bus ticket now." He said with a slight grin as Void closed his eyes. The two were gone in an instant, and Garfield could only grin as he wished them luck.

--

When the two reappeared, it was as the reporter said. The ground was filled with craters and many of the buildings had large and small holes in them. Duel and Void ducked down immediately at the sound of gunfire.

"That doesn't sound like one person..." Duel said as he grabbed Void by the front of his shirt and ran forward and stayed crouched down. He slammed into a piece of brick wall supported by rubble, and made sure that he and Void were under the edge. He slowly looked over the side, pulling out a pistol.

He leaned out, aiming with his one gun in both hands and breathed deeply as he looked for the source of the bullets. He froze as he noticed; the guns were not shooting anymore. "Voi! Get us away from here!"

He felt a hand on his shoulder and flames suddenly come out of the brick wall before he felt himself covered in cold water. He swam towards the surface quickly, breathing in and then looked around for Void. He saw him swim up a second later, "What the hell!? Where'd you take us!?" Duel yelled as he kicked his legs to stay afloat.

"Uh...I don't know..." Void said seriously as he looked around, "It's cold though...the ocean maybe?"

"Well get us back!" Duel said and grabbed Void's shirt. He felt himself pulled away from the water and then land on the ground roughly. His clothes were still soaked but he looked up to see that it was the same place, just a little quieter that it was before.

He looked at the brick wall, several feet away from him, a giant hole in it. "That was close..." He heard Void whisper before moving over to another piece of cover. Duel did not follow after him. "Shouldn't we make sure we have some cover?" He heard Void ask him.

"He's got high-explosive weapons and can probably lock on to our heat signature. Cover won't help us..."

"How do you know that?"

"Because that's what nearly hit us. A heat-seeking rocket launcher missile." Duel bent down, picking up a metal fin from the tail of one of the missiles before throwing it away. He pulled out one of his guns, looking around for the other one. He had dropped it before Void had teleported them out of the explosion.

The light glinted off a piece of metal on the ground next to the wall with the recent hole in it. He crouched down and ran forward, picking the other one up with his free hand and slamming against what was left of the wall with his back. He then spun around the wall, keeping both of his guns pointed in front of him.

He looked around, seeing no sign of the person who had caused all of the damage. "Void! Where is he!?" He ordered into the air as he stepped forward, leaning around the corners of buildings before continuing on.

Void teleported onto the top of one of the more structurally sound buildings and looked around. "I can't-!" He placed a hand over his mouth and shut himself up before looking around to see if anyone else had heard him. He then pulled out the communicator, focused on sending a message only to Duel and whispered, "I can't see him..."

Duel smirked as he holstered one of his guns, and pulled his communicator out of his trench coat pocket and clipped it next to his collar bone. "You'll probably have better eyes on him than I will. Follow close..." He said in a low volume and pulled out his other gun quickly.

He stepped over another few bricks before he noticed a shadow move in the distance. "Voi' fourth building ahead of me, I saw something move."

"I can't see anything Duel...maybe you should go around..."

"...Nah...I need to get in close as soon as I can. Keep your eyes open."

"Sure thing..." Void looked down at Duel and watched him move a little faster towards the building. He teleported over to the next, keeping up with Duel and keeping his eyes ahead of where Duel was going.

Void teleported to the next building and felt it go unsteady for just a moment, he raised his arms in order to regain his balance and waited as the shaking went away. He listened as Duel whispered through the com, "What happened?"

"This buildings gonna fall soon, I'm going towards the next one."

"Right..."

Void teleported towards the next building and then walked along the edges, looking down the sides of the building. He walked around looking before shrugging his shoulders, "He's not here Duel..."

Duel walked around the building slowly, leaning out of the corner before continuing to the next until he had circled the building completely. "If he's not outside of it..." He then looked towards the building, noticing that it had taken the least amount of damage. "Then he might just be in it."

Duel rushed forward, kicking the door open and then stepping inside, aiming around in the first floor. "Clear..." He whispered before moving up the stairs to the next floor. He went through the four floors in that building before reaching the roof, he opened the doorway, finding Void standing there with a bored look on his face.

"I told you Duel, he's not here."

"Well then...where is he...?"

The sound of rumbling drew them to the building next to them, and watched as it began to tip towards them. The building was only two stories taller than that of the one they were on, but they knew it would bring down the building that they were on as well. "Void!" Duel yelled as he grabbed him by the shoulder.

He blinked as he realized he was still looking at the building falling towards him. He looked over at Void to see his eyes widened at the sight in front of him. Duel shook his teammate a bit before cursing and dragging him over to the edge of the building.

"W-wait! What are you doing?"

"If you can't teleport, then we need our next best option. Jumping!"

Void looked over the edge of the building, suddenly growing dizzy. "No wait! I can teleport! I can teleport!" He yelled as he gripped onto the side of the building.

"Well then do it already!" Duel looked up as the building began to push and pile onto the top of the building they were standing on. The image of that suddenly disappeared and was replaced with the same exact image, but slightly farther away. "Across the street?"

"Well...it was the safest place I could think of in short notice..."

Duel shrugged, before ducking down at the sound of automatic gunfire. "Well, at least we know he's still here."

"Come children! Where are you hiding? The Teen Titans should be able to deal with much more than that!" Shouted a voice that brought the two out of their small cover, before ducking down at more sound of gunfire.

"I'm not having fun with this..." Duel whispered, listening as bullets seemed to wisp over his head. He noticed a bullet hole form from the ground, and decided to take the fight to the enemy. "Void, take us to the ground."

"But-"

"There are no better ideas..."

"You-"

"-know what I'm doing, yes yes I do!"

"Oh all right! Stop interrupting me already!"

The two reappeared on the ground, behind a familiar wall of brick and rubble, and a large hole through it. Duel looked through the whole, seeing Cannon covered in armor and weapons, shooting around the entire city. He spun around the side of the building and fired his pistols at his back, bullets bouncing off the armor and falling to the street.

Void stood on top of a piece of rubble and pulled out a single-shot rocket launcher. He aimed over his shoulder and fired the powerful device, sending it skidding across the ground before it exploded at Cannon's feet.

From the explosion came the sounds of fire and smoke, followed by strong laughter. "Curious! Are you trying to kill me? I thought that was against the Superhero way!" The smoke cleared suddenly and cannon stood without a scratch on him, but with all of his weapons aimed straight towards the two heroes, "A super-villain on the other hand, has no need for such morals!" Several rockets and mini-missiles were launched towards the two heroes and they were forced to run to the side and take cover in the alleyways as the road exploded.

Duel looked over the corner slightly, getting a better look at Cannon. His body was not fully covered by the armor and the weapons. His stomach was clear, as were slits between each piece of armor. The weapons were made of the materials the original weapons would have been made out of. Rocket launchers and the automatic rifles did not seem to match the same strength as the armor Cannon had covering his body. Finally, Duel had his target.

"Void..." He said through his communicator, still attached to his trench coat, "Try throwing some smoke grenades at him."

"Distracting and non-lethal. I like it!" He heard him respond, making him smirk as he aimed his guns over the corner and fired like a mad man. Bullets whizzed inaccurately around Cannon's body, some bouncing off of the armor, but most missing him completely.

"You are making this too easy Teen Titan!" Cannon yelled as he turned towards the corner. Duel stayed behind cover, ducking down and waiting. He heard a familiar sound, like air escaping from a confined container. He dropped his guns and ran out with his Bokugen in each hand. He turned the corner and ran into the smoke, jumping over small piles of rubble, looking for Cannon's shape and form.

He breathed calmly as he ran around, making light steps. He heard a sound and stopped, looking towards it. The smoke seemed to shift slightly in that direction. A clanking sound gave him the indication he needed as he charged forward and slashed with both of his wooden swords.

The clanged against the metal armor loudly, but did no damage. They did make Cannon realize he was under some kind of attack. Duel did not give in however, as he began to make a series of different slashes and thrusts against the armor. The bounced off harmlessly, but the vibrations and the noise affected Cannon enough to begin to get flustered.

Duel ducked under an arm trying to grab at him, he grinned at the implication. The weapon that was in that hand had been dropped. A few seconds after that the smoke began to dissipate, and Duel was left with no cover as he moved around him with a series of strikes. Something caught 

his eye as he turned and began to run in another direction, opposite to where he had just come from.

Cannon yelled in anger as he looked around and then picked up one of the weapons he had dropped. He aimed and fired multiple rounds toward him, before suddenly being struck on his back by something powerful and explosive. He fell to the ground, turning to see who would dare attack him.

His eyes came across four figures. Void, Comet, Shuri' and Garfield. He growled as he stood up and aimed both of the rocket launchers on his shoulders towards the reinforcements. He fired as the four scattered and disappeared in their respective ways, except for comet who stood and took the brunt of the attack head on.

Cannon laughed as he began to fire on the other buildings, trying to find and destroy another Titan. But as the smoke cleared, he realized he had not destroyed even one. Comet stood with his hand outstretched and a broken energy shield in front of his palm. The shield fell after having done its job to the best of its ability, and Comet's hand began to glow before discharging an energy beam against Cannon's armor.

The beam pushed against Cannon's armor but he stood firm and pushed against it. Once the beam stopped, Cannon's armor looked like it burnt as smoke came off of it, but it was still intact. Comet looked drained, barely able to stand on his own two feet. Cannon seemed to grin as he aimed with his rocket launcher, but after pulling the trigger he realized that it was a mistake.

The weapons were not made of the same material as the armor. The rocket exploded before it was launched, sending Cannon into a pile of rubble where the other rocket launcher exploded. A fire hydrant suddenly began to shoot water out towards Cannon's body amongst the small explosions going on, cooling down his body, his weapons and his armor.

By the time Shuri got help from someone else to push the hydrant back and secure it into place, Cannon was on the ground breathing hard. His armor was cracked and had fallen off him from the sudden change in temperature and the constant pressure. The Teen Titans came out of their hiding spot, some dirtier and more tired than the rest, but standing tall at the foe they had just defeated.

The sound of sirens came towards them soon after.

--

Cannon was taken to a prison hospital, and kept there until he was fit to go back to prison for an extended sentence. The Teen Titans returned to their tower, where Duel and Void received and took a well earned rest.

There was a little more peace in Jump City again, and in the Titans Tower. A thankful city slept well, while far away a vindictive mastermind began her next plan.

"Of course that prototype would fail, the entire thing needs to be made out of armor to be of true worth..." She said as she scribbled on a large white sheet of paper. Measurements and sketching of the armor Cannon had worn, only more advanced, were imprinted there. She whispered to herself, her mask on the floor somewhere, "This was just a test for Cannon, but now I know. He's quite worthy to test my inventions. Tanka!"

The small tank responsible for rescuing Cannon the first time came forward, "I want you to take the Holo-Plane, and visit Mr. Cannon. Be sure to take him back home, and make sure it's quiet." She said simply, to which the machine turned and headed towards the aircraft that had taken Cannon to the lair the first time.

"I think I'm going to enjoy toying with these new Teen Titans for a little more using him. It'll make things interesting I'm sure..."

--

Well that's it for the story before chapter 1. Essentially you are caught up and we will be moving towards the future, as such I'll be able to focus on different characters now. Not just Duel and someone else, sorry if that seems repetitive, it's for a good reason though. The main characters that will be discovered and looked through are of course, Angel and Shuri. Void will probably get more light after this, and then we'll see what we do. I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

See you,

Hawk


	5. An Angel's Dilemna

Oh my god! It's late I know! I don't even know if I like it too much even though it's long. But still, please enjoy the new chapter that I have made! Thank you!

--

Teresa Catholic High School for girls is known to be a school with a very high reputation and education level. It was built on the outskirts of Jump City, in order to allow a more natural feel to it with more trees, sky and less buildings surrounding the campus.

The higher level classes that the school is famous for usually focuses on debating and discussing current issues regarding specific topics such as politics between superheroes and regular governments. The idea that the school makes is to make sure that the students go to college up-to-date and prepared for the world.

Religion, mainly Catholicism, is also taught and sometimes discussed although on a less regular level. This is up to the teachers instead of the actual nuns who run the school as principle and temporary assistants to teachers as well as substitutes.

Generally, the children on campus are happy and graduate happy. One girl hoped that her first year as a high school student went well for the rest of her time in the school. Her walk was confident and her smile was bright as she walked to school from her mother's car. Her long brown hair waved behind her with each step she took. She smiled and nodded to the people she saw, hoping for a great day at school.

Her hopes were dashed when her name was called suddenly and loudly. "Fiona Pattison!" Her eyes found the source of the person who called her and they narrowed on the person as they waved her over with a stern face. Fiona pouted slightly as she changed direction slightly and moved towards her teacher, a thin stack of papers in her hand.

"Do you know what this is Fiona?" The teacher asked, her face not changing as she waved it slightly.

Fiona looked down, her pout still slightly evident as she responded, "No Miss Sirenia." She wanted to kick a stone on the ground or at least some dirt, but the Nun's woke up early to make the school ready for the girls at the crack of dawn.

"It's your last test, you know, the one you took on the Monday after the weeked?" She waved it a few more times before walking into the school and through the hallways. Since most of the girls were enjoying the time they still had outside in the warm sun, the hallways inside were still somewhat quiet. Fiona followed silently with her head down. "Do you know what test I'm talking about?"

"The test on…social and political relations between the Justice League and the governments of the world?"

"That's correct Fiona, and I asked you to try and study for it over the weekend so that you'd be better prepared. Right?"

"Yes ma'am…"

"But!" The teacher began, stopping just in front of her office door, "This exam in my hands shows that you not only did not study for the exam, but that you did not do the research needed to make sure you had sources for all the information you put down."

Fiona did not answer; she merely looked to the side as her teacher waited. Her teacher let out a sigh and then opened the door to her office, walking inside and leaving it open for Fiona to enter.

She did silently, her head still down and the beginning to her day relatively ruined. Miss Sirinia sat down behind her desk, placing the exam on the top of her desk and leaned back against her chair. "Miss Pattison, I know very few students who are as attentive as you are during class. But whenever you have work or studies that focus on you doing work at your own home, it seems to be a flip of the coin on whether or not you can come through."

"At this rate you may not even pass the semester, and as such you may be kicked out of the school before the year is even over." The teacher continued, her tone much softer, "Then what are you going to do? There are other school's but this one could make it so much easier to continue on to a good college, a good career…"

Fiona was silent, her eyes tearing up slightly. The lecture was over, for today, as Fiona was allowed to leave and go to her first class.

--

"Angel?"

Angel looked up suddenly, looking at her surroundings in the common room inside of Titan's Tower. She noticed Shuri' looking at her with a raised eyebrow. "Yes Shuriken?"

"I asked you if you were enjoying yourself in Titan's Tower..."

Angel smiled, although it was not very easy to see it through the glow on her skin, "Yes, of course I am. This is something I look forward to every weekend, as long as my parents are ok with it?"

"What did you tell them?" Shuri' asked politely.

"Well..." Angel started, thinking to herself a bit, "I sort of lied and told them I was going to a...study session over the weekends. They agreed to it...because my grades aren't doing well..."

"Bad grades huh?" Said a voice behind them, causing them both to turn, "I know how that feels." They looked up to see Garfield smiling down at them both. The two were sitting on the couch, relaxing.

"I just wish it was easier to take care of all my schoolwork..." Angel said with a sigh.

"Well..." Garfield began, "why not just do your schoolwork here? I mean, we won't look at it and find your secret identity, you know?"

"No!" Angel started slightly surprised and smiled, "No, that's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried that it will get in the way of...being a Teen Titan and fighting crime..."

"Come on now Angel!" Garfield said as he turned into a cat and curled onto the couch, laying down. Even in this form, Garfield continued to communicate, a skill he learned fairly recently, "There's no need to be able to do both things. Some people just aren't meant to do them both."

Shuri' looked at the green talking cat with a raised eyebrow, staying silent. Angel wondered what Shuri' was thinking about, before continuing, "Well, I heard the first Robin was able to go through being a Teen Titan and finished his educational degrees without a problem."

"Who, Dick?" Garfield let slip before chuckling and shrugging his small shoulders. "Don't tell him I said that. Anyways, Robin can do that because Robin's what you might call, a child prodigy. And with Batman as your mentor, you'd turn out that way too."

"Oh really?" Angel began to wonder a bit more before shaking her head. "Well I'm no child prodigy, I'm just a girl who can use super powers." She looked towards Garfield to see that he had been picked up and placed in Shuri's lap by Shuri' herself.

She looked back at Angel's questioning face with a raised eyebrow, and then responded tonelessly, "Green cat...cute..."

Someone sneezed in the background, "Bless you!" Angel said before looking back at Garfield. "Well...I'm not sure what I should do...I don't think I can just bring my school work over every weekend and hope that I can finish it before getting a call to stop a bank robber or something of the sort."

"Well, it's true we can't always be sure of when a criminal is going to strike. But there are moments of peace and quiet, you can use those to your advantage." Garfield said with a gleeful face as he purred being scratched behind the ears.

"Green...cat..."

Angel raised an eyebrow as she turned around and walked away from the couches. He watched Void sneeze again and then a third time. Angel responded the same way she did, and Void looked around unsure, "Is...there a cat in here?"

--

The day went by peacefully and Angel found that it was a good idea to follow the advice of her friends. As she read her text books, the hours passed and she listened to the sound her friends made in the common room.

She grimaced slightly, looking down at her textbook with a bored look. She had forgotten how much fun it was to hang out with close friends, and how much time studying took away from it.

She gave a longing sigh as she turned the page of her textbook, looking down almost forlorn, she did not notice that the glow on her skin was dimming.

"Hey!"

Someone said, knocking on the edge of her door simultaneously. She jumped at the sudden sound, the glow growing strong with her surprise before she cleared her throat, "Come in!"

The door slid open to reveal that Duel had been the one knocking. "Hey book-worm." He said with a simple smirk as he stepped in. Angel scoffed and looked back at her book, wishing she was doing something else. "Lead's got us trying to learn how to cook, feel like joining?"

"And why are we learning?"

"I guess so that we don't have to order anymore pizza. Haven't you noticed? Void gained a little weight..." Duel said with a disappointed shake of his head. Angel giggled slightly as she turned to face him.

"He did look a little heavy this weekend."

Duel laughed as he looked down at the desk where Angel was sitting. "Having a hard time?"

"No..." Angel said softly, closing her textbook and letting out another sigh, "Just...trying to make sure I'm ready for my next test."

"A test on what?"

"Historical social interactions between Superheroes and governments," She recited with perfect accuracy, almost as if it was engraved in her mind. She shook her head, she supposed that this assessment would not be far off.

Duel raised an eyebrow slightly before shaking his head, "Sounds like something I'd rather not focus on..."

"I feel the same way...but, I still need to go to school after all. I don't know if I can do this..." She gestured to the walls of the Teen Titans, "For the rest of my life."

"Hey, don't get me wrong." Duel started with his hands raised in surrender, "It's a good idea to be in school, it's just that finding a balance can be a tough thing..."

"I'm not trying to find a balance, I'm trying my best at both of them."

"And I doubt you're used to it. I meant come on, you're obviously tired and can't focus on both things at the same time."

Angel stayed silent at his words, wondering just how well could Duel read someone, she shook her head as she asked, "What would you do then?"

"Me?" Duel asked slightly surprised. He placed a hand on the back of his head, scratching his scalp gently, "I'd...probably keep doing the Superhero thing, and maybe leave school..."

"Why?"

"...That's a story for another time, but let's just say that school isn't going to teach me anything that I need to know...not for what I want to do." He turned around and gave a short wave as he walked out of the room.

"Are you saying..." She said, stopping him just as he walked out the door, "...that I should just...follow what I want to do, and not care about what anyone else thinks?"

"With discretion, but if you need to decide between two things, and both things at the same time are making your life hell...no pun intended...you should probably choose one to do your best in and let the other one go with the flow."

Angel sighed as she leaned against her chair and thought it over, "Now I'll never get any sleep tonight..."

Duel laughed as he shut the door, his voice was muffled as he called in, "You should just hang out with us then, you'll fall asleep faster that way!"

Angel giggled and smiled lightly, leaning over her book for a little longer before shutting it suddenly. She nodded her head and stood up from the desk. She moved to the common 

room with a smile on her face. It quickly turned into a frowned when she was hit by something soft and with a strong odor. She pulled it away to reveal that it was a ball made out of several pieces of laundry, all of which were probably unwashed.

She looked up at the people in the common room, all a little wide-eyed at their accidental victim, although Duel was trying to hold back a laugh. Once Angel noticed, he became the next victim as she threw the ball over to him.

Duel easily side-stepped and sat down on a chair near the kitchen. He did not think to look back and see the ball floating in mid-air, with Angel's eyes glowing, before the ball suddenly whirled around and slammed into the Duel's face.

It was silent for a moment before Void appeared in front of Angel, "You have telekinetic powers!?"

Angel stood silent for a little bit before looking to the corner of her eye, thinking, "Didn't I tell you?"

Most of the common room shook their head, the other part of the common room was gagging at the smell.

Angel looked at them and shrugged, "oops." She laughed as she moved out of the way of Duel's next through. Although she did not need to, Void was still in the way anyhow, and the back of his head took the next hit.

"Oh right..." Void grumbled from the ground, "the game's still going on..."

Angel then lightly screamed as Void stood up with the ball in his hand and threw it in a random direction. She quickly moved towards the sofa, taking cover behind it next to a tinkering Comet.

The game went on for a little while, grins on everyone's faces, with Comet trying to duck out of the way most of the time. Angel tried to make sure she never actually got it, blocking the through with her telekinesis as best as she could, but it was not perfect as Void made a teleportation right behind her and threw it.

The ball finally took the last of it then and disassembled itself all over Angel's shoulders. She gagged at the smell of socks and unwashed laundry as she quickly tried to throw each little piece off of her.

"That'll take a few showers to get the smell out I bet." Garfield said with a chuckle as he sat on the sidelines, watching with a humorous grin. He then stood up and looked over at the clock on the wall, "All right Titans, it's been a fun day and it's time for a fun night. Let's get some rest."

As each of the Titans began to move to their rooms, Void giving a little groan, Garfield stopped Angel, "Cept for you girl, you need to make sure you shower before it's too late."

"You're not funny..." She said with her hands on her waist.

"I'm not joking." He replied, causing her to take a sharp intake of breath and start running towards the shower.

After she slammed the door shut, Duel walked up to the leader and asked, "We were all hit by the stink-ball at some point or another, why aren't we bathing?"

Garfield looked over at Duel and shrugged his shoulders with a sly grin as he went over to his own room. Duel shook his head as he said to himself, "She's going to have a nervous breakdown at this rate."

--

Weeks later, Fiona found herself struggling to pay attention in class with so many other things going on in her mind. She was happy that Ms. Silenia had not noticed, otherwise she was sure that she would be in for another lecture.

As the day went on, she thought back to a discussion that she and her parents had a few days before. They were commenting on how she always looked excited and refreshed after going to her study sessions over the weekend and wondered if she was enjoying them.

Fiona nodded many times, saying that the time she spent learning with her friends helped her relax and find time to focus on things other than school work. It was here that her father spoke up, "I believe it, but are you sure it's helping you with your studies?"

Fiona looked up at him with a surprised look, and listened to her father as he continued, "I received a phone call from one of your teachers, Ms. Silenia?"

Her mother shook her head and placed a hand on her husband's shoulder, "Dear, don't do this now."

"It's all right," He responded, "Don't worry, I'm not angry I just want to know something that's all." Fiona's mother put her hand back down on her lap and sighed. "Fiona, is this school too much for you?"

Fiona looked even more surprised, and she tried to speak but found no words to say. Her father continued, "I was very surprised when you asked to be enrolled in such a high class school, I didn't mind of course, but I thought you wanted to go to a school that was a bit more relaxed."

Fiona lowered her eyes, thinking it over. Still, she had no words, and her father continued once again, "I'm sorry Fiona, I just don't want you doing something that you don't enjoy. I notice that you come back from the study sessions happy and refreshed, although tired. And yet when you go over the weekend, you're still tired, but anxious to go..."

Her father finally placed a hand on his head, his face showed him that he had no idea where he was going with the line of conversation that he had begun, and his wife was rolling her eyes to the side of him. He then shook his head and asked directly, "Fiona, are you really going to a study session every weekend?"

Fiona felt her eyes begin to tear up slightly, but she shut them and pushed them back. She looked up and without words shook her head. Her father nodded and then continued, "What are you doing then?"

"I'm..." Fiona started unsure; she could not just tell them outright what she was doing. It was a secret, one that she and her friends would uphold, but then again, she knew that her parents had a right to know. "I'm...doing something that may help me decide what I'll do with my future." She said with a much stronger tone. It was the truth after all.

"And this something would be?" Her father pressed on, only to receive a slap on his shoulder from his wife.

"That's enough Rick. Leave it alone already!" She rose her voice, and Fiona's father shrank into his seat with wide eyes, looking away and towards his daughter before nodding his head. He lowered himself, looking a bit ashamed.

"Fiona dear," Her mother began with a calm tone, "Is what you're doing something you enjoy very much?"

Fiona nodded her head.

"Do you want to leave school and do it full-time?"

Fiona looked up at her mother with a surprised expression, as did her father although he had a hand over his face to hide it.

"Don't overreact, I just want to know. I want to know what you think and what you want to do. It's your life dear, I can't force you to choose, but I can give you the choice."

"I...don't really know Mommy." Fiona replied, "I like it, and I have a lot of fun. But...I don't want to just stop going to school..."

"Then...?"

"I...I don't know..."

Fiona remembered that dinner ended silently after that. She made no decisions and went to bed quickly after finishing. She had not spoken sincerely to her parents since then as she went to school, came home and did what she needed to.

She came back to focus on her class as her teacher went on to explain the finer points of algebra, when the bell rang signaling the end of the class. Fiona packed her books into her bag and walked out with the rest of the classroom.

The next class she had was with Ms. Silenia, bringing her even lower in her energetic level. Even so, she sat down and sat up, doing her best to at least act like she was paying attention.

Then it came, a feeling of cold fear moving through the room. The entire classroom shivered and began to look over their shoulders and out the windows. Even Ms. Silenia had stopped her lecture and had begun to look around, searching for the source.

A chilling breeze began to blow into the classroom, but the windows were closed. "Damn air conditioner must have broken again..." Ms. Silenia said with a reassuring smile. She let the class out early, letting them all pick up their bags and walk out the door. Fiona followed the group, feeling the back of her neck. It was not just a regular cold in her opinion, but before she could investigate further, the door had been closed and locked by Ms. Silenia herself.

As the class moved on to the lunchroom to spend the rest of their class time relaxing and waiting for their next class, Fiona looked behind her to the classroom. Ms. Silenia was leading the group of schoolgirls, while Fiona slowly followed after them, detaching herself from the main group without realizing it.

When she realized that she was alone in the hall, she also realized that it was beginning to get a little colder all around her. She looked at the windows as they began to fog over. She rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to warm herself up and get rid of the goose bumps she felt all over.

She decided she was better off with the rest of the students as she jogged towards the lunch room as quickly as she could before breaking into a run. The cold seemed to chase after her, a mist coming from the ground as it followed her through the hallway. When she finally reached the lunch room, she opened it and shut it behind her quickly after she entered.

She took deep breaths as she saw several of the other school girls looking at her with wide eyes. Many of the classes were inside the room at the moment, not just her class. She quickly and calmly walked over to the table with the rest of her class and sat down.

She looked up at the rest of the teachers, watching them speak to each other in a huddle. A friend of hers tapped her shoulder, "They say that there's nothing wrong with the air conditioners."

"I wonder what's wrong then..." Fiona wondered in a whisper, and heard another friend chime in.

"They think that it's a super villain." Fiona's eyes widened at the sound at that, but she stayed silent.

"How are you supposed to know that Tia?"

"Well I heard Ms. Silenia suggest it to the principal."

Fiona shook her head, "Ms. Silenia always thinks of ways to blame super powered people."

"Well it's not like she's wrong or anything. I mean people with super powers are dangerous."

"Oh I know, fighting with all those other villains. They just destroy more than they save."

Fiona was silent during the conversation, finding that she could neither agree nor disagree with what they were saying. "Come on Fiona, you think so too right?" Tia asked with a smile.

"I uh..." Fiona started, swallowing and feeling that her throat was a little dry, "I...actually think we'd be in trouble without superheroes..."

Her friends looked at her silently and with wide eyes. "Come on Fiona...you don't really think that."

"I do." Fiona said with a much more steady and confident voice, "without superheroes, the villains would be much more difficult to bring down, if not impossible. We just need to find a way to work with them better, not control them. They are people too..."

"Yeah but not all of them are human..."

"So? We dealt with racial differences between us remember? What's wrong with overcoming other racial differences?"

"Well yeah but-"

"How many times have we been saved by superheroes, taken them for granted and yet when something goes wrong, we're ready to put the entire blame on them. There was no other possibility when the Justice League satellite shot down onto the Earth."

"They shot us!"

"Tia, the United States Government sent up agents to shoot down on the Earth. They wanted people to lose faith in the superheroes."

"Hey!" The entire class looked up to see that their teacher had returned, Ms. Silenia had an arched eyebrow as she looked over the entire class. "As much as I enjoy the fact that you actually have been keeping up with the current events, don't you think it's a little late, the test was over a week ago."

The class gave a small chuckle as the teacher smiled at them. "Now, we're going to evacuate the school. Don't ask why or what's wrong, because I won't tell you. All I will tell you is that we're leaving in a calm and orderly fashion and you're going to go to your home on the bus, even if you don't usually take it, understood?"

The class was silent in agreement, and the teacher nodded. "Good, then let's get ready to go."

Ms. Silenia, along with all of the other teachers, took their classes towards the emergency exit and left class-by-class. As they walked on they saw that the hallways were beginning to frost over, along with the windows. Fiona kept a watchful eye around her as her class walked through the emergency exit. As they exited, they were greeted by the sight of snow across the courtyards in front of the school.

The class was shocked as some brave students walked forward in order to see if it was really snow. Fiona kneeled down and scooped up some of the snow in her hand, feeling the bits of ice begin to melt. She patted her hand over her skirt to clean it off and watched as some of the students began to relax and have fun in the cold wonderland.

Ms. Silenia barely held her class together as she looked over the snow, "It's spring, there shouldn't be any snow here..." she said calmly as she continued to look over her class and keep them together with a stern face. Fiona looked over the snow herself, watching snow ball fights arise and snowmen being created.

A sudden wind started to blow through the air, with laughter following through it. The laugh was gentle and masculine, and as the wind continued to blow it began to twirl with bits of snow in it, before spinning around to create a small mound of snow, with a young man sitting on top of it.

He had a bright smile and wore casual clothes; the only thing that made him different from other people was that his skin, clothes and even hair were crystal blue. One could think they could see through him if they were close enough. The man was handsome, and the smile helped to woo a few of the girls closest to him. They giggled as they stood there watching him.

"Hello students, I've come to see that you're having good fun in a place as droll as school." Said the young man with the smile still on his face. He stood up then, sliding 

down the side of the hill without any trouble, and then walked along the snow. "I hope you're all enjoying yourselves?"

He smiled as he watched several girls nod their heads with snowballs in their hands, "Very good, then why don't you stay?" He asked, raising his hands to make it snow a bit more over the school to the delight of many of the girls.

"Why should we? School is supposed to be a place for education, not a place solely for the purpose of fun, unfortunately." Ms. Silenia responded with crossed arms, her eyes narrowed behind her glasses as they began to darken under the brightness given off by the sunlight bouncing off the snow.

"Oh but I just thought I'd make things a little more interesting for them."

"So you're supposed to be some kind of Santa Clause? Bringing gifts at the wrong time of the year don't you think?" Ms. Silenia responded with an annoyed tone.

"Santa Clause? Me? Oh no, but you can call me Jack Frost if you like, Jack is just fine of course." He said with the same smile he had from the beginning, almost as if it was frozen in place.

"Original..." Fiona whispered, eliciting a few giggles from the girls who could hear her.

Ms. Silenia then continued, "Well Jack, I'd say you've done a fine job. The school's snowed in of course, I don't think we'd mind letting them go home." She received a nod from the principle which elicited several excited responses as a few of the girls started running towards the open gate out of the school grounds.

Jack continued to smile as they ran towards it, before the gate was suddenly covered in ice, blocking the way. The ice spread across the wall, covering it completely and then grew upwards, reaching high above them and doming over the school. "Now...that might hurt some of my plans..."

The smile was still there as he said this, walking along the snow with a finger over his chin. He looked over at Ms. Silenia, "Please don't be so quick, I only want you to stay here for a little while longer."

"And I want these children to leave the school grounds young man!" Said the principle as he walked forward with several other teachers a few nuns following behind him slowly. Jack looked over at the middle-aged man and shook his head, before pointing a finger at him. The eyes of each person inside widened as ice suddenly appeared on the principles chest and spread quickly along his body.

He tried to brush it off but soon found that he could not move his arms either. His feet were frozen to the ground, and his legs went next. The ice moved up along his neck, and it was evident that the frostbite was giving him pain before the block of ice encased him 

completely. There was silence after it was done, broken by the sound of Jack's voice, "Stubborn old man, now he has to hope that I get the money I want sooner rather than later."

The girls nearest to him stepped away, staying away from the frozen body of their principle and joined up with their friends. Jack's smile widened, "Come on now! There's no need to be afraid. I can assure you I won't hurt you...unless of course, your parents don't pay the ransom that they need to."

"There's always a catch..." said Ms. Silenia as she gritted her teeth angrily and then looked back at all the girls. "Everyone! Move back to the school!"

"Oh come on now! You're hostages, but you can all at least have a little fun while you wait." Jack said with a wide grin as he picked up a snowball and threw it, scaring many of the girls that were in the general direction of the snowball. It hit one of the girls, and then fell to the ground, harmless. The girl who was hit shivered in terror as she brushed off the snow on her uniform as quickly as she could.

"Ah well, I suppose I can understand that reaction. Although it is a little cute either way." He said and laughed as he shook his head.

"You think no one's going to realize that something's wrong?" a brave student said. Fiona put her hands over her lips; she did not realize she had said this. But it had come out already, and she knew that Jack had heard it, as he looked directly at her.

"And who could possibly fight against me? The police? I doubt your parents have called them."

"And the Teen Titans?" She said, receiving a light scoff from both Jack and Ms. Silenia.

"The Teen Titans are a new bunch of superheroes, led by the comic relief of the real group of superheroes. Besides they have other things to worry about." Jack said with a grin as he shook his head, an almost disappointed look in his eyes when he looked at Fiona. "Ah well, such is the innocence of children."

Fiona wanted to retort but she was stopped by her teacher who shook her head. She noticed she held a similar look in her eyes, to which Fiona felt her face stern up and push Ms. Silenia aside. "The Teen Titan's will show up!" She shouted at the top of her lungs.

"Persistent, I'll admit. But they would have been here by now if that were true." Jack said with a smile and looked around. The students looked around with him, finding no heroes ready to save them. "Too bad." He continued smiling at Fiona, who looked back with a serious expression.

"I'll admit we're a tad bit late," someone said suddenly, causing Jack to look around. He looked up to see a boy in a red shirt and tan shorts standing proudly on the top of the 

school. The bandana with slits over his eyes was that of Void Walker, unmistakably. "But that's just because it took us such a long time to find this place."

"W-what!?" Jack Frost had a look of slight anger in his eyes, but the smile was still there. The wind suddenly began to pick up, "What are you doing here? I made sure your tower was frozen, and that someone took care of a robbery!"

"Please, as if we need to send the whole team in order to take care of a bank robbery." Void said with a proud voice, while Jack grit his teeth but then calmed down.

"So they sent you instead?"

Void placed a finger on his chin as he thought it over, "Yeah, but not alone."

An explosion sounded at the gate, a chunk of the ice wall melting and turning to steam as Comet walked through. His arm gun charged and ready to fire again if he needed to. "I'd suggest you give up, you really don't stand a chance." He said as he aimed the gun over at Jack.

Jack smiled, his eyes wide and his pupils small, "You're going to shoot that with all these people here? What if you miss?"

"It'll warm this place up," Comet began, "And I don't miss without a reason."

"Then how about if I do this!?" Jack waved his hand towards a group of school girls, causing the wind to suddenly turn cold and surround them. The biting cold surrounded them and raised the level of the snow. But before anything else could happen, it all melted under the heat of Comet's beam, continuing on and going through the ice wall, harmlessly towards the sky.

"Like I said, I don't miss without a reason." Comet's gun began to charge again as he started running forward, towards where Jack was standing. Jack broke off towards the school were the students were trying to get inside with the help of the teachers.

He reached out as he came close to one of the teachers, Ms. Silenia. But before he could grab her, he was thrown back by powerful arms. A roar sounded from the source of the arms, a green gorilla. As it transformed back into Garfield's human form, he stood at a ready fighting stance.

Jack landed in the snow, sliding a little bit, before he stood up again. He looked at Comet and then at Garfield before smiling weakly, "What about the principle, he's frozen right? You can't just fight me and let him die inside, right?"

He pointed and looked over at the principle. What he found were several portable heaters connected to one large battery, and Void standing next to the melting ice with a satisfied 

smile on his face. The top part of the ice had already melted and the principle was breathing and conscious.

"So you thought you had us all figured out right?" Garfield began, "And that you knew how you could keep us preoccupied, but you underestimated us just like a lot of you are doing lately. We're the Teen Titans, new or old, we'll get the job done the right way." Garfield said proudly.

"Now," Comet continued, "Are you giving up or what?"

Jack looked at the three heroes with shifty eyes and, for the first time, a serious expression on his face. Soon, his grin returned but the eyes remained shifty and wide, "Let's see what 'Or what' gets me huh!?" He nearly screamed at the top of his lungs and he raised his hands. An ice pillar appeared below him and brought him up a few feet, while the wind began to get colder and colder.

By then, most of the students were already inside, while Garfield and Comet looked up towards their slightly maniacal enemy. "Comet! Open fire!"

"Right." Comet responded and fired on the pillar, cutting through it easily, and nearly causing the pillar to fall before the ice reformed suddenly, and the pillar continued to grow.

"Damnit! Slow him down some will you?" Garfield yelled before transforming into an eagle and gaining altitude quickly. Comet continued to fire at the pillar slowing down Jack's progress only slightly as he tried to reach the ceiling of the ice dome. Jack's hands reached up towards the ceiling as he opened a way for him, before Garfield finally reached him.

His eyes widened as the green eagle flew down and slammed into him, turning into a rhino with more weight. The momentum sent the two hurtling off of the ice pillar and down several feet towards the ground. Garfield tried to escape, but he felt part of his body cover in ice after touching Jack, and Jack was frozen in fear as he neared the ground.

Suddenly, without warning, the ground below them became a light the shape of a large mattress. The two landed on it and bounced off of it slightly. The light melted much of the ice and snow on the ground immediately.

Comet looked around, searching for the source that he knew well. But he could not see Angel anywhere no matter how hard he looked. He focused on Garfield as he noticed that the ice continued to grow and spread on his skin. But the light shifted and covered Garfield, warming up the ice and melting it immediately.

Garfield looked around with Comet but then decided it was best not to look. He turned around to look for Jack on the ground, but only found his imprint on the ground. Garfield held back a curse as he smelled the air, realizing that he was still near them, somewhere. 

And then, he came out of the snow, arms turned into ice shards and charged forward, only to run into a wall of rock and dirt that suddenly appeared out of the ground.

Jack hit it head on at full speed, knocking himself out on impact. And then the rock wall went back into the ground. Garfield's eyes were wide with surprise as he looked around, turning his head. He saw what he was looking for, only barely. There was a teacher behind the corner of the building with tinted glasses, which tried to hide a faint yellow glow. The teacher disappeared behind the corner and ran off, although Garfield had already seen her.

She sprinted forward and then turned around another corner, running into a student. The two fell to the ground, and looked at each other in surprise.

"M-Ms. Silenia?"

"Fiona?"

The two looked at each other from where they were on the snow, before they stood up quickly. Ms. Silenia returned her glasses to her face, and Fiona tried to clean off the snow on the back of her skirt. They looked at each other silently, not sure if they were correct on what they were thinking the other was hiding, but Ms. Silenia broke the silence, "Well, let's get to the rest of the class then shall we?"

"Yes ma'am, of course." Fiona responded and entered the building, followed by her teacher. Inside they found all of the students and teachers had blankets, hot cocoa and a several heaters. Void suddenly appeared out of nowhere and looked around, trying to make sure he had taken care of everyone before he came across the two who had just entered.

He raised an eyebrow at them before he shrugged and disappeared. He was only gone for half a minute, before he reappeared with two cups of hot cocoa, two blankets, and a genuine smile on his face.

--

After both Jack Frost and those he hired to stage a robbery were apprehended and arrested the entire team went to the school to make sure everything was all right and the ice went away completely. The entire school expressed their gratitude and the nun's asked that the snow stay and melt on its own, as most of the students still enjoyed playing around in it.

Duel and Shuriken both arrived with surprised looks on their face, with Duel's becoming covered in snow in no time. He looked over at the source, finding Void to be holding another snowball, ready to throw.

Comet took charge in melting the ice walls which left Garfield to receive the thanks from each teacher and nun all by himself. He tried not to stay longer but in the end the Nuns could not help themselves. After a while however, some of the less enthusiastic nuns asked, "And you are of course the leader of this team correct?"

Garfield nodded and waited as the nun continued, "And what are you doing for their education?" To which Garfield could only stay silent with a nervous smile on his face. The nun did not smile in return, "I'm sure you're aware of this by now, but I think we have enough superheroes, why don't you just let them be normal kids from now on?"

Garfield was about to say something when the nun interrupted him again, "Honestly, don't you think they enjoy playing around here, than doing superhero work. I can't believe you would take kids away from their education just to-"

"Ma'am," said a voice to the side, causing most of them to turn and see that the four members of the Teen Titans present, were assembled. Void had spoken up, "I like not going to school." He continued, causing the rest of his friends to smack their foreheads.

"Not really what you need to say Void." Comet responded.

"It's the truth isn't it?" Void replied.

"What he means to say, is we made this choice ourselves. And Lead here is teaching us how to do what we do at the best of our abilities. In no way are we forced to risk our lives."

Void nodded his head, "What he said too, but I just like not having to go to school." He grinned as he said this, and Duel was forced to nod in agreement.

"So the decision was already made..." Ms. Silenia was the one to speak at this and nodded, "Fine then. I doubt we could change their minds." She walked away from the group, leaving several teachers and nuns in surprise.

"Ms. Silenia, are you telling me that you've changed your stance on them?"

"Yes ma'am, I have." She answered briskly and continued over to the girls as they played in the snow.

--

After that, the Teen Titans went back to their tower, with Comet wondering why Angel's powers were used although she was not present at the battle. Rest came first however as it had been a long day.

Garfield reached his room and prepared for bed, but before he could, his communicator went off. He opened it, and found himself staring at a familiar face. "So it was you?"

Ms. Silenia was on the other side of the line, a light smile on her face and with her glasses off. "Yeah, I was...kinda hoping I'd never have to use my powers again..."

"Sorry, I was careless."

"It's fine...maybe it's time I stopped hiding anyways."

"Terra..."

"Beast-"

"It's Garfield, actually." He said with a smile, and she responded the same way.

"Fine Garfield, I have a suggestion to make. One that will probably make all of us happy."

--

"Wait! We're doing what!?"

Garfield sighed at Void's outburst from behind his book. He knew it would not be a happy realization, but a small amount of education was not a bad plan for the future of each of these kids.

"You're going to have a teacher, at least twice a week to give you some general classes. They'll be during the weekdays, since Angel already goes to school somewhere."

"Wait, but who's going to teach us? And what about...you know...combat stuff...?" Void said with increasing desperation. To which Duel patted Void on the back, he realized it was probably a losing battle.

"An old friend, and one who can also help each of you with your techniques." Garfield smiled as the elevator opened to reveal a woman around Garfield's age. She wore the right sized black tank-top and yellow shorts that she had been her uniform long ago. At the same time, she had goggles over her head, pulling back her blonde hair from her eyes and slightly oversized tan gloves and boots.

"My name's Terra everyone, I'll be your teacher from now on." She grinned as Void sobbed in the background, with Duel patting his shoulder and with a stoic look on his face.

--

Fiona sat in Ms. Silenia's class, only there was a substitute standing where Ms. Silenia would normally stand. She did not know why yet, but she would soon. Instead, she 

focused on writing her notes and remembered the words her friends and comrades had said, they had made their decision.

They wanted to be heroes and would sacrifice a stable future in order to protect and serve the community at the risk of their lives if necessary. She made her own decision then, although it would be difficult for her, she would do both. She would not overextend on what she could do as a student, and yet would do her best as a superhero.

As she wrote the notes for her class down on a piece of paper, she found herself smiling and that the fact that her mind was clear of the problem, was already making her feel relaxed and confident.

--

Wooohooo! That took too looong! I'm sorry! I also didn't expect it to be so big either, of which I am actually proud so I hope you forgive me for this. I will beg, I probably should...Anyhow, there is something I would like to ask you all before you go and hit the back button...wait...stop! not yet! Hold it!...

Still there? Good thank you.

Now as I'm sure you know, I'm a writer Smacked in the back of the head by a paper fan

Right of course, anyhow, I am not good at drawing. I'm actually kinda bad in my opinion. I'd like to see if I can find and ask for someone to draw for me. It would of course be a favor (One that I could probably only repay through writing) but I'd also like to find someone who enjoys my stories enough that they would be willing to see and make them drawn out on paper.

I'd be very grateful if anyone was willing to do this. Very...if your reading this...please review because that makes me love you! Happy Dance Paper fan to head again

Ow...ok...so yeah that's it. Please and thank you for reading through my request. Please and thank you for writing down a review because it helps my heart to see them. Seriously, I like reading them. I'll even show my appreciation for them if that's what it takes to get more!!

I'm such a suck up, later all and thanks again for reading.

Hawk Strife.


	6. A Darker Shadow

DAMN YOU WRITER'S BLOCK!

Please don't kill me, or ignore the story. New Orleans is cold and College likes giving me a lot of homework. I don't like homework. Someone, please save me…

Oh hey! I got a story! It's written! Yay!!!! Read please…

-----

"Hey! Get down!" Someone yelled as large pieces of stone suddenly flew over the heads of five young Titans. They all ducked for cover, wondering what they had all done to deserve such treatment. Shuri' looked over the top of the cover she was hiding behind, before ducking behind it again as another stone nearly hit her head.

"She's getting a little aggressive don't you think?" Angel shouted to her teammates.

"Maybe it's that time of the month!" Void yelled in return, before receiving a smart pat over his head.

He turned to see Shuriken looking at him with a twitch in her brow, "Void-san! Ecchi!" She shouted, turning away from him quickly and disappearing into a small shadow.

"Well that's going to be useful for us in the future…" Void whispered to himself, and then turned back towards the others. "Well? What's the plan then?"

A small stone impacted against the ground, digging deep before stopping. Duel shook his head as he gave a slow and cautious glance over the side of his cover. He stopped as he realized that his cover was beginning to move. "Scramble!" He yelled as the stones they had been hiding behind lifted into the air and began to follow after each of the Teen Titans.

"Useless." Comet stated, aiming a cannon at the rock in the air and firing without a second thought. It cut through the stone quickly, causing it to crack from the inside before it burst into small and useless chunks. It suddenly came in closer together and began to compress.

Comet spread his stance, preparing to go defensive if the stones suddenly burst out like a frag grenade. Comet was half-right. With a sudden burst, the compression exploded in a cloud of dust and sand. He was effectively stuck in a smokescreen.

Switching to a heat sensing camera, he had just enough time to duck out of the way of an incoming fist. He then ignited the boosters in his legs, and shoulder tackled the girl trying to flatten all of them.

Terra felt the metal shoulder in her stomach send her a few feet out of the smokescreen she had created. She rubbed her stomach slightly, wincing before she rolled out of the way of another shoulder charge. Her roll bounced her off another stone, which she then climbed onto and began to force into a hover.

As she was rising, Duel climbed up one of the sides. Once on top, Duel rushed forward with a Bokugen in his right hand and slashed at Terra. She stepped out of the way, then ducked under another attack. The space was small, but as she dipped under another slash it became evident that she was well used to using what territory she was given. She jumped suddenly, and the stone below her gave a quick spin, throwing Duel towards the ground.

He swore as he spun around in the air for a bit, before hitting something. He could not feel the ground, and realized as he opened his eyes that he was still in the air somehow. A quick turn of his head revealed Angel to be holding on to him, breathing hard. There was a smile on her face though, one that Duel could clearly see as she spoke, "Need a lift?"

He watched her flap her wings and send them both in Terra's direction. Duel focused on his target, pulling out his other Bokugen and waiting for the right moment to strike. He nodded his head silently, and felt as Angel released his shoulders, allowing him to fall silently. He was 2 feet away from giving Terra a kick on landing, when she turned around with a smile. Her eyes glowed as she moved the stone away, and Duel swore again as he realized he was not going to make it.

He felt a hand grab around his wrist suddenly, and he stopped falling but began to follow after the flying rock. He looked up to his rescuer, seeing Shuriken's smiling eyes looking back at him. With another hand already hanging onto the rock, she pulled him onto the edge and then disappeared into the cracks of the stone. Duel could only stare in surprise as he hung on tightly, both bokugen still in his hands.

He hit his head against the side of the stone as it suddenly came to a stop, giving Duel the chance to climb again. With a sudden burst of speed, he came charging out and thrust his shoulder against Terra's stomach. She winced, the previous shoulder-butt still giving her pain, as she fell to her knees and her eyes ceased to glow.

He was about to smile victoriously, when the stone began to fall. He sighed as he, Terra, the stone, and eventually Shuriken were all freefalling, watching the ground below them get closer. He landed on a mattress, bouncing and jarring his head a bit before turning to look at Void. "Nice rescue."

"Thanks" Void replied with a thumbs up.

"Was Bed, Bath and Beyond having a sale or something?" Duel asked gesturing to the mattress under him.

"Something like that…yeah…" Void replied, a hand on the back of his head as he grinned nervously.

Duel pushed himself off of the mattress, watching as Void put it back to where it belonged. "Where's Shuri' and Terra?" He watched Void point upwards in response and looked up to see Comet and Angel floating down towards the ground with Terra and Shuri' in their arms respectively.

"Good catch…" Terra said once she was back on the ground. Comet gave a silent nod in response. "Well, the exercise is over." Terra continued as she turned around and looked at the rest of the Titans. "You're not incredible superheroes, but you might be starting to get the finesses of working as a team right. I'll be interested to see how well you all get along in the future."

With the battle over, Terra reached into her belt and pull out a remote. She pressed a button, and the battlefield began to flicker before disappearing completely. In its place was a metal room, showing a few blast marks but nothing serious. Terra sighed happily, "I love this room. First dibs on the shower!" She shouted as she ran out of the room, followed leisurely by the rest of the Titans.

"You'd think she'd realize that we can wait a while before we need to take a shower. That wasn't even that bad!" Void said with a smile, and jumped slightly when he felt someone poke his back. He turned around, seeing Shuriken with her nose pinched shut.

"Void-san, you will take the next shower." She said, pulling up her scarf in the hopes that it would block out some of the smell. Void stood there with his mouth open for a while, before sighing in defeat.

Once they got to the common room, Comet went back to his own room with a silent wave. Duel and Void began to play video games for a while, silently focused on their task. Angel was in the kitchen, looking through the fridge for small supplies, while Shuriken was sitting on the couch watching the two videogamers. As soon as she heard the shower room open, she reached over and grabbed Voidwalker by the ear.

With a yelp, Void was half-dragged to the shower room. Duel chuckled as he won the race because of it.

-----

"Is it truly time brother? This is so unexpected…"

"It is, I know. But we must do this. And the Princess needs to be here for our plans to commence."

"She may not wish to come."

"She will know what comes first between what she wishes to do, and what she needs to do."

"Shall I send a messenger then?"

"No…we should be more serious in calling her back. Send a clan…"

-----

"Who else is missing?" Garfield asked the commissioner, an elderly man wearing the police uniform. He was the commissioner back when Garfield was still a teenager, and was one of the many people who considered the Teen Titans a group of great heroes.

"Five other people are missing, not including the Mayor's son. They disappeared without a trace, and there are no eye witnesses. They all disappeared at almost the same exact time. I figured you'd want to be aware of this." The commissioner said with a serious tone but a smile still on his face.

Garfield nodded his head, "Thank you, we'll start investigating as soon as we can." After giving a quick wave, Garfield jumped into the air. Transforming into a green raven, he flapped his wings and flew back towards the ocean, where the Titans Tower continued to stand tall and proud.

As he landed on the roof of the building, he transformed back into his human form and looked around. He enjoyed the view from the top, it showed him the city and the ocean. He remembered that this was the last place that the entirety of the Teen Titans had been together.

It was a sad memory, but they all left each other with smiles on their faces. No one really gave up crime fighting, and for the most part they all tried to keep in touch with each other. At least, that was what Garfield had heard among the rumor mills. He shook his head, now was not the time for remembering things like that.

It was the time for a new mission.

-----

The Titans decided that they would split up into pairs, with Garfield working on his own. Duel worked Shuriken, Void was paired with Angel, and Terra worked alongside Comet. They spread out to different scenes where the people had been kidnapped. Garfield entered an apartment complex, the last place that a young woman was seen before her disappearance.

He clipped his radio to his uniform, turning it on and gently speaking, "Garfield here, radio check."

"Terra here, check."

"Duel, copy."

"Angel here."

"Oh hey a radio!"

"…Comet, here."

"Shuriken."

Garfield nodded, "All right keep your radios on and give me a status report every ten minutes. Let everyone know if you find anything."

He walked up the stairs to the apartment, ducking under the yellow police tape and looking around. There were several cardboard boxes laying around, labeled with a black marker. A large amount of them were still unopened. He walked around, seeing that the bed was the only piece of furniture that had been used thus far.

"Looks like this person had just moved in…" Garfield said through his radio and continued searching through the house.

"Terra here, copy that. The person who was living here moved in a week ago. The neighbors can't imagine why he was kidnapped suddenly; no one knows he lived here yet."

Garfield came across a television set, hooked up and turned on. As he looked around, he noticed the remote control fallen on the floor along with a newspaper and a few bottles of nail polish. He continued to look around, but saw too much of a mess to find an answer to his question. Where was she exactly when she disappeared?

"This is Void, does anyone see any sign of a struggle on their end?"

"Negative Void," Garfield said first, "I'm wondering what happened."

"This guy's place is impeccable," Void continued, "Clean from front to back. With all that, a struggle should be easy to see."

Garfield raised his nose a bit and began to take a few deep breaths through it. He transformed into a wolf, sniffing around and searching for something, anything, that would give him a clue. He found the woman's scent in the air and began to follow it around the house, from box to box.

He stopped in front of the television set. The scent completely disappeared here. He transformed back into a human in mild shock, scents never just disappeared. "Is it possible that someone teleported the kidnappers out of here?"

"BB," Terra said, "at the moment the only teleporter I'm aware of is our Voidwalker. Are you saying that there's another?"

"I found the last place this woman was at before she disappeared, and then all traces of her are gone. I can't even find her smell anymore." Garfield responded in mild frustration, she continued to ignore calling him by his real name.

"Void," Duel asked over the radio, "What do you think?"

"Well, it's possible to kidnap someone using my power. But they'd need to be fairly still. I could take them anywhere, but to kidnap them I'd need to catch them completely off guard and teleport them fast enough without them being able to react. That and I'd need to be able to see exactly when they were at some place before I teleported in to get them."

"You do it all the time when you're picking something up like a weapon or a police shield." Duel responded.

"Well, that's different sort of. Whenever I reach out to get something, I know what I'm looking for and my power helps me out somewhat. Most times, I don't really know where I got the object from but I remember where I need to put it back. Or at least, my body and my power remembers where I need to put it back."

"A safety mechanism on your power?" Garfield asked curiously.

"I guess you could call it that. Either my power has the safety mechanism, or my subconscious is keeping me from losing my arm in a wall accidentally."

Garfield shook his head, "Ok ok, so we've come to understand that a teleporter would have a hard time being able to kidnap someone. And kidnapping six people almost at the same time would be impossible for one teleporter to do. If that's the case, who else could have done this?"

"I don't know…" Void said sincerely, "can you get another scent in the air?"

Garfield nodded as he tried to find one, he had to sniff closely around the last spot he'd been able to smell the young woman. It seemed like there was nothing there, but he continued to smell the ground until he came across a new scent. It was subtle, and very weak as if it had been there for less than a second. Near the couch with the newspaper and the nail polish bottles, was a scent.

"I've got something," Garfield said gently, "it's weak, but it's something. There's a scent near the couch…actually, the scent seems like it's coming from under the couch."

"Well that doesn't seem like it'll help us much, "Terra exclaimed, "unless there's a hole under the couch."

"Nope, no hole."

"Well then what?"

"I have no idea."

-----

Duel and Shuriken had entered the mayor's son's room hoping to find any clue, but like the others were coming up empty handed. Duel had decided that from the placement of the book on the ground, and the idea that someone may have been able to almost teleport the boy out, the boy was near his bed reading something before disappearing completely.

Shuri' had stayed silent the entire time. After she began her search she stopped looking and sat down on a chair. After realizing that the clues may have been non-existant, Duel realized that Shuri' had stopped looking.

He walked over to her, leaning down, "Hey, you ok?"

Shuriken looked up in slight surprise, but nodded her head gently. "Yes…please don't mind me Duel-san."

"Well there's nothing else to do. I can't find anything here. Whoever did this was pretty good, or must have some incredible power. Just wish there was something I could use…"

"I doubt you will ever find a clue…"

"What?"

"No…forgive me. That was very rude of me…" Shuri' said shaking her head and apologizing, "Gomen Nasai (I'm sorry)."

"It's all right," Duel said in response, watching Shuri's head look back up at him, "I think I agree with you. Whoever did this knew what he was doing, I may never find a clue no matter how hard I look." He shook his head with a light smile, before raising an eyebrow.

He moved over to the bed, pulling out his bokugen. He then reached inside and dragged out a small black bandana. On it were several characters, Kanji he guessed, embroidered into the black cloth with red. He looked over at Shuri', "I think I found something, but I can't understand it."

Shuri' took it from him quickly and looked it over. Her eyes widened slightly and Duel wondered what was the matter before she spoke in a small whisper, "I'm sorry…this is merely a…souvenir from Japan. I do not believe it has any value as a clue whatsoever."

Duel sighed as she said this, taking the bandana from her and looking it over. "That's a shame…" He looked back up at her, but she would not look back at him. Instead she looked to the side, gripping her arm gently. "Hey," Duel said, "don't worry, it's not your fault. I'm sure we'll find something eventually."

He patted her shoulder and she looked back for a short while before turning away again and nodding her head silently.

-----

After the search turned out to be fruitless, the other two locations were looked at but provided the same results. Garfield had the team return to Titan's tower, and continued to look over the other locations as best as he could.

He returned to the Mayor's son's room, and began the same search he had done in all the others. He did not think that Duel would leave anything out, but at the same time, knew that Duel did not have the same abilities as Garfield. After searching and sniffing through the room, he came upon the bandana. Duel had put it on a cabinet.

Garfield picked it up and looked it over, from what he could see it looked like Kanji. Although from what he remembered in his trip to Japan, it did not look like any characters he had ever seen before. He placed it under his knows and immediately found both Duel's and Shuri's scent mixed onto it. Then he found another scent.

It was not similar to that of the Mayor at all, but he found resemblances to the scent inside of the first place he had searched. He looked it over in surprise, how did Shuri' not realize this? He looked it over slowly and tried to see if he could find any words that he could translate. After several minutes of trying to remember words and relating them to the Kanji characters, he found one, "home."

"Well that doesn't help me at all…" He said to himself before putting the bandana in his pocket and leaving the room. He would need to tell the team what he found, it would probably be useful for all of them.

On his return, he found something to be strange. Silence. A Tower full of teenagers and one adult, and there was only silence. Knowing better than to take peace for granted, he transformed into a cat and started to stealthily go down the stairs into the common room from the roof.

Once inside, he was surprised to find the entire room quiet. After looking around, he figured out why. Everyone was asleep. Duel was knocked out on the couch while Void was in front of the game station. Comet was also on the ground next to Terra, and then he found a girl with long brown hair passed out in the kitchen. He took in her scent for a moment before figuring out that it was Angel. He would need to wake her up eventually, but first came the fact that he had not found Shuriken yet.

Turning into a snake, he slithered along the ground, heading into the hallway with everyone's room in it. He made his way to Shuriken's door and turned into a fly, going under the door and inside the room. There were whispers inside the room. Six men covered in black cloth from head to toe knelt in front of Shuriken.

"Hinata-sama, are you prepared to return?"

"Why is ouji (uncle) calling me back now? What could he possibly need from me?"

"Please Hinata-sama, you must speak of him with respect. He is the Chieftain now…"

Shuriken did not respond to it and took in several deep breaths before speaking again, "I am no longer of the Kage Tribe, I am not needed."

"Nevertheless," said one of the kneeling men with force, "He has ordered us to bring you home. And if we must, we will do so with force."

Shuriken sighed turning away from the six men and nodding her head gently. "Fine…please wait while I say goodbye to my friends."

"Unfortunately no, we leave now Hinata-sama." The six ninja stood up from their positions and calmly walked towards Shuriken while she looked at them in surprise. She backed into the wall, before they all suddenly disappeared into a shadow. Garfield stayed on the ground in shock, before transforming into his human self and walking over to where they had been standing moments before.

He found nothing. Not a single trace of them. He grunted as he ran back into the common room and turned on each and every light. They stirred slightly, but none of them woke up. With a bit of frustration, he transformed into a lion and gave off a mighty roar that echoed in the common room.

Duel and Void were up in an instant, disoriented enough that they fell onto their backs again. They stayed awake though. Angel woke up with a squeal and then took cover in the kitchen. After a while, a light began to glow behind the Kitchen counter, and she stood up slowly and unsure.

Terra and Comet were beginning to come to as well, but slowly. Garfield transformed back into his human form and made sure that everyone was either standing, or completely awake in the very least.

He then explained what had just happened, not taking any questions from them.

"How the hell did we miss all that?" Void said with a hand to his head after Garfield was done.

"Sleeping gas…" Comet said looking around himself. He walked over to a part of the room and picked up what looked like a cracked egg. "This is the source."

"And they were hiding in the shadows…they used the same powers as Shuriken." Duel said with a sigh, "well at least we know how they kidnapped everyone now."

Void grunted, "And they were just kidnapping people to get us distracted!"

"And we fell for it, but that doesn't mean we're going to give up." Garfield said with a serious tone of voice. Everyone looked over at him in surprise, and confusion.

"Listen BB," Terra said earning her a twitch from Garfield, "no offense, I'm sure we all want to get Shuriken back. But they're ninja, isn't secrecy their whole deal? How are we supposed to find them?"

"I just gotta make a few calls that's all." Garfield said with a grin.

-----

"Are you kidding?"

"Come on Dick, seriously I could use your help right now." Garfield said with his hands together.

"You must be kidding. Why would you think that I'd be suddenly willing to help you when you haven't spoken to anyone in the last two years? You haven't even given the Justice League invitations a response at all."

Garfield chuckled as he looked at the face of his former fearless leader. Currently out of his uniform, Dick Grayson looked back at Garfield with a cool and calm demeanor, but his eyes obviously showed a little annoyance. Without the mask, Garfield could not help but feel a little intimidated, maybe that was why he always wore the mask.

"Listen Dick, I'm sorry about not keeping up with all of you. And I'm sorry I haven't responded to the invitations, I've been a little busy trying to protect the city remember?"

"Yeah I remember!" Dick said raising his voice slightly before closing his eyes and breathing deeply. "Yes, I remember, but you could have told someone what you were doing."

"It's not like I was trying to hide or anything."

"That doesn't mean we could just pop in and visit whenever we damn please. We were worried and we didn't even know why you didn't talk to us."

Garfield sighed, he did not really have an excuse, although he knew that was the wrong thing to say. "Look…I'm sorry, and I understand that I've been a bit of a douche lately." He paused as he watched his friend raise an eyebrow, "Ok, a lot of douche, but seriously I was just trying to handle life on my own for a while. I never really did it before."

Dick sighed as he shook his head. "No I suppose not, but you owe a lot of people apologies. Especially Raven."

Garfield winced, he figured she would come into the conversation again at some point. He had just hoped he would have been able to wait awhile.

Dick crossed his arms, "If you want my help, as soon as this call is over, you are going to call and speak to each and every one of the Titans."

"Well, yeah absolutely. I don't have a problem with that."

"Garfield." Dick said seriously a small smirk on his face that scared his green friend, "I do mean each and everyone."

"What!? But…I…oh come on! That's a lot of people!"

"You were gone for a long time, I think it's fair." Dick replied cooly.

Garfield face palmed himself gently, he only had himself to blame. "All right! I'll call everyone, after the mission is done."

"No, after you give your team the information that I have. I'm sure those kids can handle saving a Teen Titan on their own. Hell, you can send Duel and Void over to Japan all by themselves. Terra, Angel and Comet can handle the city on their own for a few days."

"Well yeah but—" Garfield paused and then narrowed his eyes at the image of his now smiling leader. "How do you know all of that? Wait, how do you know that Duel and Void need to go to Japan?"

Richard gave a wider smile, "Once I saw the bandana, I started researching my database. I've already found all the information they'll need. I'll send it right over once you agree."

Garfield could not believe that his former leader was doing this to him. He must have really pissed off everyone else. "Oh and Garfield?" Dick said as he sent the information, "I will hold you to this promise."

Garfield gulped silently and nodded his head in defeat.

-----

"You…look like you just sold your soul to the devil to get us this information." Duel said with an arched eyebrow. Terra gave a giggle as Garfield gritted his teeth.

"That…may be closer to the truth than you could ever imagine…" He groaned out.

"Ok, so let's get ready to go then." Void said with a grin, pumping his arms out. "Ok everyone in a circle."

"Hold on there padawan," Garfield said, shaking his hand, "you and Duel will be the only ones working on this mission."

"That sounds…like a bad plan." Void replied slowly, unable to find a better way to show his dislike for the plan. He figured that the simpler ideas worked out best.

"We can't leave the city undefended while we do this, and who knows how long the mission could take." Garfield said while crossing his arms. "You and Duel can handle a sneaking mission can't you? You each have the right kind of skills for the job."

"Teleportation sure. But Duel shoots and slashes things."

"Watch it Void…"

"In any case," Garfield continued, "I'm sure you both will be able to handle whatever they have to throw at you. You two also are starting to work together fairly well, you can think of this as a test."

"Sure, a test where the life of our comrade is at stake!" Void half-shouted.

"Well that's the superhero job," Garfield replied without missing a beat. Duel and Void stared at their leader silently while he continued, looking with wide-eyes, "You're always rescuing normal people from death and destruction, and every now and then a friend of your with just as many skills and powers as you is in need of the same help. Just because the person can get out of the bad situations themselves, doesn't mean they have a choice in the matter or that you have to let them get out of it alone."

There was silence after this, none of the Teen Titans could say anything in response. Void gave a small nod, "So…Japan huh?"

"A forest in Japan. There's a difference between Tokyo, and whatever this place is." Duel said as he looked over the information again. "Are you sure you can get us here? You've never been there right?" Duel asked with an arched eyebrow.

Void gave a smart nod, "Yeah. I've got a general idea for what I'm looking for. It'll be easy to get to the forest, the village itself is the hard thing to look for."

"Which is why we're searching on foot." Duel replied with a nod, "Ok then, I think we can set off then." He gave Void a pat on the back and looked over to the rest of the team.

"We'll keep the city safe until you get back." Comet said crossing his arms. "We might actually save it a little more without Void's constant rocket launchers."

"Hey!"

"Comet's just kidding Void, calm down." Angel said with a smile, "Come back safe though. It won't be the same without you." The two grinned and nodded in return.

"Time to go Duel!" Void said as he grabbed onto Duel's trench coat without warning. Duel's eyes widened as he tried to get away, shouting.

"Hey wait, let me get—" He was cut off as he and Void suddenly disappeared into thin air.

"Void's going to be in so much trouble for that…" Terra shook her head as she said this.

Comet turned at the feel of his shoulder being patted on strongly, "You know Comet I'm glad you're here. Without you, there'd be too much estrogen for me to be able to handle."

"Well that's not a very nice thing to say!" Terra shouted as she walked over to Garfield and started ranting on him for being so sexist. Garfield was left apologizing profusely as he tried to get away to his room.

Comet was left staring at where Garfield had just been before turning to Angel who was back in the kitchen, cooking again. Comet patted her shoulder gently and while fiddling with his fingers asked, "Do…I seem…manly to you?"

"…"

-----

Now I know why I think so little of myself. *sigh* I really need to get my act together. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope you realize that I do intend to keep going with this story. If only because I like the idea of thinking up new superheroes for the Teen Titans. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy and I hope you read the next chapter when it comes out. Review please, opinions make me work harder!

Hawk Strife


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